LI 

Theolog 

PRI 


Case, 

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Book 


B  R  A.  R  Y 

OF   THE 

i  c  a  1    Seminar 

y, 

NCETON,    N.  J. 

Bacon,   Leonard,    i^ 
The  genesis  o*^^^® 
England  churches 


THE  GENESIS 


OP 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND 


CHURCHES. 


/ 

By    LEONARD    BACON, 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


NEW    YORK: 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN     SQUARE. 

18  7  4. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1874,  by 

Harper   &   Brothers, 

[n  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


TO  ALL  WHO  HONOR  THE  MEMORY  OF 

THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS, 

AND   ESPECIALLY   TO   THE 

FIRST  CHURCH  OF  CHRIST  IN  NEW  HAVEN, 

WHICH   I  SERVED   IN   THE  PASTORAL  OFFICE   THROUGH  MORE   THAN  FORTY 

YEARS,  THIS   ENDEAVOR   TO   "BRING  FORTH   FRUIT  IN 

OLD  age"    IS  RESPECTFULLY  OFFERED, 


^^^/, 

^{"^Y. 


P  R  E  F  A  C  E:  ' ' 


A  FEW  words  will  sufficiently  explain  to  the  reader  of 
this  book  the  design  of  the  author. 

The  history  of  Protestant  Christianity  in  the  United 
States  of  America  is  the  history,  not  of  a  national  church, 
but  of  voluntary  churches.  I  have  attempted  fo  show  how 
it  began,  and  to  trace  the  origin  and  development  of  the 
idea  which  generated  the  churches  of  ]S"ew  England. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  Baptist  churches 
— a  name  which,  in  the  United  States,  comprehends  more 
churches  than  any  other  save  one — are  constituted  on  the 
same  platform  of  polity  with  the  church  which  came  in 
the  Mayflower.  I  have  had  no  occasion  to  speak  of  them 
or  of  their  influence  in  giving  character  to  our  American 
civilization ;  inasmuch  as  the  history  of  churches  bearing 
that  name,  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  begins  later  than 
the  latest  date  in  the  volume  now  submitted  to  the  public. 
It  has  been  claimed  for  those  churches  that,  from  the  acre 
of  the  Eeformation  onward,  they  have  been  always  fore- 
most and  always  consistent  in  maintainino;  the  doctrine 
of  religious  liberty.  Let  me  not  be  understood  as  calling 
in  question  their  right  to  so  great  an  honor. 

My  life  has  been  too  busy  for  researches  among  the  re- 
motest sources  of  history.  The  story  in  this  volume  is  de- 
rived chiefly  from  works  which  may  be  found  in  all  good 
libraries.  Instead  of  going  to  the  British  Museum  that  I 
might  inspect  the  editio  jprincejps  of  some  Separatist  book 


VIU  PREFACE. 

for  which  the  author  was  hanged,  I  have  made  use  of  the 
abstracts  and  extracts  in  Hanbury's  "  Historical  Memori- 
als." The  documents  which  were  collected,  arranged,  and 
published  by  the  late  Dr.  Alexander  Young,  with  his  care- 
ful annotations,  in  those  two  volumes,  the  "  Chronicles  of 
the  Pilgrims"  and  the  "  Chronicles  of  Massachusetts,"  were 
worth  more  to  me  for  my  purpose  than  the  originals  from 
which  he  copied  them  could  have  been.  Inasmuch  as  I  had 
before  me  Bradford's  "  History  of  Plymouth  Plantation," 
transcribed  and  published  at  the  expense  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society,  with  annotations  by  its  learned 
secretary,  Mr.  Deane,  there  w^as  no  need  of  my  crossing  the 
ocean  to  consult  the  venerable  autograph  w^hich,  having 
been  stolen  from  the  Prince  Library  when  the  Old  South 
Meeting-house  was  occupied  by  British  soldiers,  was  found 
after  many  years  in  the  library  of  Fulham  Palace.  I  have 
been  as  well  provided  for  the  work  which  I  have  attempt- 
ed as  I  could  have  been  if  the  Bishop  of  London  and  the 
Queen  of  Great  Britain  had  not  said  their  '-^  Non  possii- 
mw5,"  or  if  the  omnipotent  Parliament  had  authorized  the 
rendition  of  the  precious  relic  to  its  rightful  proprietor. 

The  Prince  Library  can  not  be  named  without  honor- 
able mention  of  its  founder,  Thomas  Prince,  the  earliest 
American  bibliographer,  whose  "  Annals  of  ]S"ew  Eng- 
land"— though  less  important  as  an  authority  since  the  re- 
covery of  Bradford's  History  than  it  w^as  when  Dr.  Young 
incorporated  much  of  it  into  his  "  Chronicles" — is  so  help- 
ful a  guide  in  the  study  of  our  history,  whether  of  church 
or  state.  The  title  of  his  work  sliow^s  that  he  did  not  forget 
how  different  is  tlie  task  of  the  annalist,  collecting  facts 
and  arranging  them  in  strictly  chronological  order  as  in  a 
table  of  dates,  from  that  of  the  historian,  who,  dealing  with 
the  same  facts,  describes  them  in  their  significance  and 
their  natural  connections.    Whatever  disappointment  may 


PREFACE.  15c 

be  experienced  by  a  reader  who  opens  Felt's  "Ecclesias- 
tical History  of  New  England"  with  the  expectation  of 
finding  on  its  pages  a  continuous  and  lively  narrative,  the 
reason  of  that  disappointment  will  be  that,  while  all  the 
facts  of  the  story  are  there,  the  book,  instead  of  being 
really  history,  is  little  else  than  a  chronological  arrange- 
ment of  events,  set  down  with,  exemplary  carefulness  and 
diligence,  but  almost  as  dry  as  a  volume  of  statistics.  I 
take  pleasure  in  acknowledging  my  indebtedness  to  the 
annalists  and  to  the  collectors  and  editors  of  historical  doc- 
uments— to  Felt,  Young,  Prince,  and  Hanbury,  as  well  as 
to  the  Anglican  Strype.  I  do  not  profess  to  have  gone 
behind  them  for  the  facts  which  they  give  me  ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  do  not  regard  my  work  as  bearing  any  re- 
semblance to  theirs.  I  have  only  attempted  to  construct 
a  story  out  of  the  materials  which  the}^,  and  others  like 
them,  have  provided. 

This  book,  then,  is  offered  to  readers  as  a  history  digest- 
ed from  materials  wliich  others  ha^•e  prepared  for  me. 
It  makes  no  profession  of  bringing  to  light  new  facts  from 
documents  lieretofore  inedited,  or  from  black-letter  books 
heretofore  overlooked.  It  simply  tells  an  old  story,  giving 
perhaps  here  and  there  a  new  interpretation  or  a  new  em- 
phasis to  some  undisputed  fact.  My  purpose  has  been  to 
tell  the  story  clearly  and  fairly,  not  for  the  instruction  or 
delight  of  antiquarians,  nor  merely  for  those  with  whom 
church  history  is  a  professional  study,  but  for  all  sorts  of 
intelligent  and  thoughtful  readers.  He  who  writes  only 
for  scholars,  or  for  the  men  of  some  learned  profession, 
can  say,  "  Fit  audience  let  me  find,  though  few ;"  but  my 
labor  has  been  thrown  away  if  the  story  which  I  have  writ- 
ten is  not  so  told  as  to  invite  the  attention  and  to  stir  the 
sympathies  of  the  many.  Those  who  read  the  story  will 
understand,  I  trust — what  many  are  ignorant  of,  and  what 


PREFAOK. 


some  historians  have  not  sufficiently  explained — the  differ- 
ence between  "our  Pilgrim  Fathers"  and  "our  Puritan 
Fathers."  In  the  old  world  on  the  other  side  of  the  ooean, 
the  Puritan  was  a  Nationalist,  believing  that  a  Christian  na- 
tion is  a  Christian  church,  and  demanding  that  the  Church 
of  England  should  be  thoroughly  reformed  ;  while  the 
Pilgrim  was  a  Separatist,  not  only  from  the  Anglican 
Prayer-book  and  Queen  Elizabeth's  episcopacy,  but  from 
all  national  churches.  Between  them  there  was  sharp  con- 
tention— a  controversy  quite  as  earnest  and  almost  as  bitter 
as  that  which  they  both  had  with  the  ecclesiastico-political 
power  that  oppressed  them  both,  fining  and  imprisoning 
the  Puritan,  and  visiting  upon  the  Separatist  the  added 
penalties  of  exile  and  the  gallows.  The  Pilgrim  wanted 
liberty  for  himself  and  his  w^ife  and  little  ones,  and  for  his 
brethren,  to  w^alk  with  God  in  a  Christian  life  as  the  rules 
and  motives  of  such  a  life  were  revealed  to  him  from  God's 
Woi'd.  For  that  he  went  into  exile ;  for  that  he  crossed 
the  ocean ;  for  that  he  made  his  home  in  a  wilderness. 
The  Puritan's  idea  w^as  not  liberty,  but  right  government 
in  church  and  state — such  government  as  should  not  only 
permit  him,  but  also  compel  other  men  to  walk  in  the 
right  way.  Of  all  this  the  ingenuous  reader  will  find,  1 
think,  some  illustration  in  the  history  before  him. 

The  words,  written  or  spoken,  of  the  actors  in  the  story 
are  often  introduced  for  the  sake  of  bringing  the  reader 
into  closer  connection  with  the  men  whom  I  describe  and 
with  their  times ;  but,  in  so  doing,  I  have  not  always 
deemed  it  necessary  to  transcribe  with  scrupulous  exact- 
ness every  pleonasm  or  tautology,  and  every  careless  mis- 
location  of  words  in  the  structure  of  a  sentence.  If  in 
any  instance  I  have  misrepresented  the  meaning  of  a 
quotation,  let  me  receive  such  censure  as  the  unfairness 
may  seem  to  deserve.    Though  I  am  not  aware  that  I  have 


PREFACE.  X 1 

used  a  larger  liberty  in  this  respect  than  is  conceded  to 
writers  of  history,  I  may  say  that,  if  I  have  erred,  the  error 
was  because  of  my  desire  to  make  the  meaning  of  every 
sentence  clear,  at  the  first  glance,  to  an  ordinarily  intelli- 
gent reader. 

The  history  of  the  colonization  of  New  England  has  been 
admirably  written  by  Dr.  Palfrey  ;  and  it  would  have  been 
folly  in  me  to  attempt  a  repetition  of  what  he  has  done  so 
well.  Mine  is  a  very  different  undertaking.  The  story 
which  I  tell  is  the  story  of  an  idea  slowly  making  its  way 
against  prejudices,  interests,  and  passions — a  story  of  faith 
and  martyrdom,  of  heroic  endeavor  and  heroic  constancy. 
It  includes  only  so  much  of  secular  history  as  is  involved 
in  the  history  of  the  idea,  and  of  the  men  whom  it  pos- 
sessed, and  who  labored  and  suffered  to  make  it  a  reality 
in  the  world  of  fact.  I  have  attempted  nothing  more  than 
a  humble  contribution  to  our  ecclesiastical  history — only 
a  book  of  Genesis,  which,  had  I  written  it  earlier,  might 
have  been  followed  by  a  Puritan  Exodus.  Mr.  Punchard's 
"  History  of  Congregationalism,"  and  Dr.  Waddington's 
most  elaborate  "  Congregational  History"  (of  which  a  sec- 
ond volume  has  been  lately  published),  cover  a  much  wider 
field  than  I  have  ventured  to  traverse. 

I  take  the  liberty  of  expressing  here  my  thanks  to  Pro- 
fessor Fisher  of  Yale  College,  who  has  kindly  assisted  in 
revising  the  proof-sheets  of  this  volume,  and  whose  sugges- 
tions have  contributed  to  its  accuracy  especially  in  the  ear- 
lier chapters.  In  the  later  and  most  important  chapters, 
beginning  with  Chapter  X.,  I  have  had  also  the  benefit  of 
corrections  and  suggestions  from  the  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  M. 
Dexter,  who  is  better  acquainted,  I  suppose,  than  any  other 
man  with  every  foot-print  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  at  Scroo- 
by,  at  Amsterdam,  at  Leyden,  or  in  New  England.  Yet  I 
must  not  represent  him  as  responsible  for  every  thing  on 


XU  PREFACE. 

those  pages ;  for,  being  less  imbued  than  he  with  the  anti- 
quarian spirit,  I  have  sometimes  ventured  not  to  follow 
where  he  seemed  to  lead  me.  For  example,  when  he  tells 
me  that  the  Urst  governor  of  Salem,  under  the  Massachu- 
setts corporation,  wrote  himself  John  Endecott,  I  can  not 
doubt  the  fact,  yet  I  leave  the  name  in  the  form  in  which 
it  has  passed  into  history  and  poetry — John  Endicott.  In 
regard  to  any  more  important  matter  of  fact,  I  should  not 
dare  to  reject  the  advice  of  a  friend  so  learned  and  so  ac- 
curate. 

L.  B. 

New  Haven,  July  1,  1874. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I.— A.D.  1-100. 

Pagk 

What  was  in  the  Beginning 17 

CHAPTER  II.— A.D.  100-1500. 
From  the  Primitive  to  the  Papal 34 

CHAPTER  III.— A.D.  1517-1555. 
What  the  Reformation  in  the  Sixteenth  Century  did  for  Church  Polity. .     49 

CHAPTER  IV.— A.D.  1370-1560. 
The  English  Reformation  and  the  Puritans 60 

CHAPTER  v.— A.D.  1560-1583. 
Reformation  without  Tarrying  for  Any 73 

CHAPTER  VL— A.D.  1583-1587. 
Separatism  before  the  High  Commissioners 91 

CHAPTER  VII.— A.D.  1590-1592. 

Controversy  under  Difficulties. — Nationalism,  Conformist  and  Puritan, 

against  Separatism 110 

CHAPTER  VIII.— A.D.  1592-1593. 
The  Martyr  Church  :  the  Jails  and  the  Gallows 131 

CHAPTER  IX.— A.D.  1555-1593. 
John  Penry,  the  Martyr  for  Evangelism 1 55 

CHAPTER  X.— A.D.  1587-1608. 
Persecution  and  Exile. — The  Church  at  Scrooby 1 86 


XIV  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XI.— A.D.  1G08-1616. 

Page 

The  Separatists  in  Amsterdam 216 

CHAPTER  XIL— A.D.  1G09-1618. 
The  Sojourn  at  Leyden. — John  Robinson  a  Pastor  and  an  Author 228 

CHAPTER  XIII.— A.D.  1G17-1620. 
Struggles  and  Sacrifices  in  a  Great  Attempt 253 

CHAPTER  XIV.— A.D.  1620. 

From  Leyden  to  Southampton. — Robinson's  Pastoral  Letter. — The  Pil- 
grims the  Reformers  of  Separatism 284 

CHAPTER  XV.— A.D.  1620. 
The  Voyage  of  the  Mayflower,  Exploration,  and  the  Landing  of  the 

Pilgrims 306 

CHAPTER  XVI.— A.D.  1621. 
The  First  Year  at  Plymouth 323 

CHAPTER  XVIL— A.D.  1622,  1623. 
Adversity  and  Progress. — Weston's  Colony,  and  what  came  of  it 357 

CHAPTER  XVIII.— A.D.  1624, 1625. 
Attempts  of  Nationalism  against  the  Pilgrim  Church 390 

CHAPTER  XIX.— A.D.  1625-1629. 
The  Pilgrim  Colony  Abandoned  by  the  Puritan  Adventurers. — Prosper- 
ity at  Plymouth. — Death  of  Robinson. — The  Leyden  Remnant 421 

CHAPTER  XX.— A.D.  1624-1629. 
The  Beginning  of  a  Puritan  Colony  in  New  England,  and  what  came 
of  it 446 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


The  Compact  in  the  Cabin  of  the  "Mayflower" Frontispiece. 

St.  Alban's  Hall,  Oxford  (Penry's  College) Faces  p.  156 

SCROOBY "  202 

Leyden.  '. "  233 

The  Embarkation  at  Delft-Haven "  286 

Cape  Cod  (from  Young) "  308 

Plymouth  (from  Young) "  316 

Plymouth — Burial  Hill "  318 

Sabbath  in  the  Common  House  at  Plymouth "  320 

The  "  Mayflower  " 322 

The  Return  of  the  "  Mayflower" "  337 

Edward  Winslow '*  373 

Pilgrim  Autographs 445 

John  Endicott "  454 


O  God  !   beneath  Thy  guiding  hand, 
Our  exiled  fathers  crossed  the  sea ; 

And  when  they  trod  the  wintry  strand, 

With  prayer  and  psalm  they  worshiped  Thee. 

Thou  heard'st,  'well  pleased,  the  song,  the  prayer- 
Thy  blessing  came ;   and  still  its  power 

Shall  onward  to  all  ages  bear 
The  memory  of  that  holy  hour. 

What  change  !   through  pathless  wilds  no  more 
The  fierce  and  naked  savage  roams ; 

Sweet  praise,  along  the  cultured  shore, 
Breaks  from  ten  thousand  happy  homes. 

Laws,  freedom,  truth,  and  faith  in  God 
Came  with  those  exiles  o'er  the  waves ; 

And  where  their  pilgrim  feet  have  trod, 
The  God  they  trusted  guards  their  graves. 

And  here  Thy  name,  O  God  of  love, 
Their  children's  children  shall  adore, 

Till  these  eternal  hills  remove, 

And  spring  adorns  the  earth  no  more. 


THE   GENESIS 

OF   THE 

NEW   ENGLAND    CHURCHES. 


CHAPTER  I. 

WHAT   WAS   IN   THE    BEGINNING. 

In  the  beginning,  Christianity  was  simply  Gospel.  Eccle- 
siastical organization  was  not  the  cause,  but  the  effect  of  life. 
Churches  were  constituted  by  the  spontaneous  association 
of  believers.  Individuals  and  families,  drawn  toward  each 
other  by  their  common  trust  in  Jesus  the  Christ,  and  their 
common  interest  in  the  good  news  concerning  the  kingdom 
of  God,  became  a  community  united,  not  by  external  bonds, 
but  by  the  vital  force  of  distinctive  ideas  and  principles. 
New  affections  became  the  bond  of  a  new  brotherhood,  and 
the  new  brotherhood,  with  its  mutual  duties  and  united  re- 
sponsibilities, became  an  organized  society.  The  ecclesias- 
tical polity  of  the  apostles  was  simple — a  living  growth,  not 
an  artificial  construction. 

How  was  it  at  Jerusalem?  A  few  persons — about  one 
hundred  and  twenty  in  all — after  the  ascension  of  their  Lord, 
were  in  the  practice  of  assembling  in  an  upper  room,  which 
seems  to  have  been  the  head-quarters  of  the  eleven  who  had 
been  nearest  to  him,  and  whom  the  others  recognized  as 
leaders.  These  persons  were  Jews,  whose  distinction  from 
their  countrymen  was  that,  having  been  followers  of  Jesus 

B 


18  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.  [CH.  L 

before  his  ignominious  death,  they  had  not  lost  their  confi- 
dence in  him  ;  but,  in  the  face  of  an  immense  and  triumphant 
majority,  believed  that  though  he  had  been  rejected  by  the 
priests  and  rulers  of  the  nation,  and  crucified  by  the  Roman 
power,  he  was  the  Messiah  risen  from  the  dead,  and  invested 
with  all  authority  on  earth  and  in  heaven.  Waiting  for 
some  new  manifestation  of  his  glory,  they  "  continued  with 
one  accord  in  prayer  and  supplication  " — not  those  of  the 
sterner  sex  only,  as  if  they  were  planning  a  revolutionary 
movement  in  the  state,  or  were  setting  up  a  new  school  in 
philosophy,  but  the  men  "  with  the  women,  and  Mary,  the 
mother  of  Jesus,  and  with  his  brethren."  Thus  they  were 
unconsciously  forming  that  new  commonwealth  of  men  and 
women,  and  of  households,  united  by  personal  attachment 
to  Jesus,  and  living  in  the  atmosphere  of  worship — that  com- 
monwealth of  faith  and  love  which  was  to  realize  in  its  fut- 
ure all  the  promise  of  a  new  earth  encircled  by  new  heavens. 
At  first  the  few  disciples  seem  not  to  have  thought  much 
about  how  their  society  should  be  organized  and  its  aff*airs 
administered,  their  minds  being  otherwise  occupied.  The 
earliest  appearance  of  any  thing  like  organization  among 
them  is  when  it  seemed  necessary  that  one  of  them  should 
be  designated  and  recognized  as  an  apostle  in  the  place  that 
had  been  made  vacant  by  the  defection  and  death  of  Judas. 
On  that  occasion  the  whole  proceeding,  though  essentially 
theocratic  in  its  spirit,  was  democratic  in  its  form.  It  seems 
to  have  been  doubtful  which  of  the  two  brethren  toward 
whom  the  minds  of  the  assembly  had  been  turned  was  best 
qualified  for  the  work  of  an  apostle.  An  expedient  was  re- 
sorted to,  which,  had  the  assembly  been  unanimous  concern- 
ing the  superior  fitness  of  either  candidate,  would  have  been 
preposterous.  The  question  whether  Barsabas  or  Matthias 
should  be  "numbered  with  the  eleven  apostles"  was  decided 
by  lot,  religiously,  and  with  prayer  that  thus  God's  will 
might  be  manifested.  The  religious  use  of  the  lot  for  the 
decision   of  doubtful  questions   was  customary   among  the 


A.D.  1-100.]         WHAT   WAS   IN  THE   BEGINNING.  19 

Jews  from  the  earliest  period  of  their  history,  but  no  other 
instance  of  it  appears  in  the  New  Testament. 

On  the  fiftieth  day  after  that  Passover  at  which  Christ  was 
crucified,  the  new  dispensation  which  had  been  prepared  in 
his  life  and  death,  and  completed  in  his  resurrection  and  as- 
cension, was  publicly  introduced  by  the  manifestation  of  a 
special  divine  presence,  the  promised  Holy  Spirit  illuminat- 
ing and  guiding  the  apostles.  Suddenly  the  one  hundred 
and  twenty  became  three  thousand.  Of  this  growing  multi- 
tude it  is  said  that  "  they  continued  in  the  apostles'  doctrine 
and  fellowship,  and  in  breaking  of  bread  and  in  prayers." 
In  other  words,  the  "three  thousand  souls"  were  bound  to- 
gether by  their  constant  attendance  on  the  apostles'  teaching, 
and  their  sympathy  of  thought  and  feeling  with  the  move- 
ment which  those  witnesses  for  Christ  were  leading;  they 
had  a  certain  distinctive  practice  of  breaking  bread  together, 
as  if  they  were  all  one  family,  and  they  continually  prayed 
together.  Their  new  ideas  and  new  sympathies  and  hopes 
were  a  bond  of  union  ;  and  though  not  yet  separated  from 
the  Jewish  people,  nor  anticipating  such  a  separation,  they 
were  beginning  to  be  a  distinct  community  with  a  life  of 
their  own — a  community  almost  unorganized,  so  far  as  the 
record  shows,  and  yet  distinct  in  the  midst  of  the  Jewish  na- 
tion, like  that  nation  in  the  midst  of  the  Roman  Empire.  A 
new  and  unique  commonwealth  had  begun  to  live,  and  must 
needs  c^row  into  some  org^anized  form  accordins^  to  its  nature. 

How,  then,  shall  the  new  community  be  organized  ?  What 
officers  and  functionaries  shall  it  have?  How  shall  it  be 
governed  ?  The  silence  of  the  record  seems  to  show  that 
the  apostles,  busy  with  their  work  of  teaching,  daily  repeat- 
ing to  the  thousands  of  new  disciples  the  remembered  words 
of  their  Master,  telling  as  eye-witnesses  the  story  of  Jesus 
from  his  baptism  to  his  ascension,  and  preaching  the  good 
news  of  the  kingdom,  gave  themselves  little  concern  before- 
hand about  the  organization  of  the  community  w^hich  was 
coming  into  existence  as  the  result  of  their  testimony  con- 


20  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.  [CH.  1/ 

cerning  the  resurrection  and  glory  of  the  crucified  Christ. 
Yet  something  of  organization  was  inevitable,  and  could  not 
be  long  deferred.  To  sustain  so  large  a  community — so  sud- 
denly constituted,  and  including  multitudes  who  had  come 
to  Jerusalem  only  as  pilgrims,  many  of  them  from  distant 
regions — large  contributions  were  necessary,  and  were  made 
by  those  who  had  any  thing  to  give.  In  the  emergency,  all 
that  they  had  was  thrown,  as  it  were,  into  a  common  stock ; 
for  such  as  had  convertible  property  of  any  kind  sold  it,  and 
made  generous  distribution  of  the  proceeds  to  all  that  were 
in  want.  When  this  liberality  is  first  mentioned  [Acts  ii., 
44,  45],  it  is  as  if  the  distribution  were  made  by  the  donors 
themselves,  or  by  their  personal  friends,  without  any  formal 
arrangement.  Afterward  [iv.,  34,  35],  when  the  work  had  be- 
come more  arduous,  and  when  those  of  the  disciples  who 
had  "  lands  or  houses,"  in  Jerusalem  or  near  it,  sold  them  for 
the  benefit  of  the  common  cause,  the  distribution  seems  to 
have  been  in  a  more  systematic  way  under  the  direction  of 
the  apostles.  But  after  a  while  the  number  included  in  the 
new  community  had  been  so  multiplied,  and  the  amounts  to 
be  received  and  distributed  had  become  so  great,  that  these 
methods  were  found  unsatisfactory.  Then  it  w^as — and  ap- 
parently not  till  then — that  special  ofiicers  or  commissioners 
were  appointed  to  that  service. 

The  procedure  in  making  the  appointment  was  full  of  a 
religious  spirit,  and  at  the  same  time  democratic.  It  may 
be  compared  with  a  parallel  passage  in  the  history  of  the 
Wesleyan  polity.  After  Wesleyanism,  with  its  exquisitely 
adjusted  organization,  had  become  powerful  in  England,  and 
while  John  Wesley  was  still  holding  the  reins  of  power,  he 
undertook  to  tell,  at  one  of  the  conferences  of  his  helpers, 
what  his  power  was,  and  how  he  came  by  it.  He  told  how" 
a  few  persons  came  to  him,  first  in  London,  and  then  in  other 
places,  desiring  that  he  would  advise  them  and  pray  with 
them.  "  The  desire,"  said  he,  "  was  on  their  part,  not  on 
mine  " — "  but  I  did  not  see  how  I  could  refuse  them  my  help 


A.D.  1-100.]  V/HAT    WAS    IN    THE    BEGINNING.  21 

and  be  guiltless  before  God.  Here  commenced  my  power — 
namely,  a  power  to  appoint  when,  where,  and  how  they 
should  meet,  and  to  remove  those  whose  life  showed  that 
they  had  no  desire  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come.  And 
this  power  remained  the  same  whether  the  people  meeting 
together  were  twelve,  twelve  hundred,  on*  twelve  thousand." 
After  a  time,  the  people  who  had  thus  come  under  his  care 
and  direction  proposed  a  subscription  of  quarterly  payments 
for  certain  common  interests — such  as  rent  and  repair  of  the 
building  in  which  they  held  their  meetings — and  he  permit- 
ted them  to  subscribe.  "Then  I  asked,"  so  he  continued  the 
story,  " '  Who  will  take  the  trouble  of  receiving  this  money 
and  paying  it  where  it  is  needful  ?'  One  said, '  I  will  do  it, 
and  keep  the  account  for  you ;'  so  here  was  the  first  steward. 
Afterward  I  desired  one  or  two  more  to  help  me  as  stewards, 
and  in  process  of  time  a  greater  number.  Let  it  be  remem- 
bered it  was  I  myself,  and  not  the  people,  who  chose  the 
stewards,  and  appointed  to  each  the  distinct  work  wherein 
he  was  to  help  me  as  long  as  I  chose."  He  gave  a  similar 
account  of  his  power  over  the  preachers,  whether  as  individ- 
uals or  as  assembled  in  conference.  Without  raising  any 
question  as  to  the  wisdom  or  the  rightfulness  of  the  autoc- 
racy which  Wesley  asserted  over  the  voluntary  association 
by  which  he  was  hoping  to  revive  religion  in  the  Church  of 
England,  we  can  not  but  observe  the  contrast  between  his 
account  of  what  he  did  in  the  appointment  of  receiving  and 
disbursing  officers  in  the  community  which  he  was  found- 
ing, and  Luke's  account  of  what  the  apostles  did  in  the 
appointment  of  similar  officers  for  the  community  under  their 
teaching  at  Jerusalem. 

The  apostles  seem  to  have  been  proceeding  on  Wesley's 
plan,  which  was  natural  and  reasonable  in  the  circumstances. 
Offerings  for  the  support  of  the  community  had  been  brought 
to  them,  and  the  distribution  seems  to  have  been  made  by 
them  personally,  or  by  others  acting  for  them.  A  complaint 
had  arisen  that  the  distribution  was  not  perfectly  equitable. 


22  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.  I. 

In  dealing  with  that  complaint  the  apostles  convoked  not  a 
conference  of  preachers  only,  whom  they  had  taken  under 
their  direction  and  control  as  their  "helpers"  in  the  work, 
but  "  the  multitude  of  the  disciples."  Instead  of  explaining 
how  it  was  that  the  power  of  appointing  stewards  fell  into 
their  hands,  and  how  reasonable  it  was  that  they  should  re- 
tain the  powder,  they  refused  to  have  any  burden  of  that 
kind  laid  upon  them.  The  financial  affairs  of  the  growing 
community  were  not  to  be  managed  by  them  nor  by  their 
agents.  "It  is  not  meet,"  said  they,  "that  we  should  leave 
the  word  of  God  and  serve  tables."  Their  proposal  was  that 
special  officers  for  this  trust  should  be  designated  by  popular 
election.  "Brethren,"  said  they,  "look  ye  out  among  you 
seven  men  of  honest  report,  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of 
wisdom,  whom  we  may  appoint  over  this  business.  But 
we"  —  your  teachers  and  the  commissioned  witnesses  for 
Christ — we,  instead  of  burdening  ourselves  with  your  af- 
fairs— "  will  give  ourselves  continually  to  prayer  and  to 
the  ministry  of  the  word."^ 

In  this  record  of  an  office  instituted  by  the  vote  of  a 
church  meeting,  and  of  officers  designated  by  "  the  whole 
multitude  of  disciples  "  acting  as  electors,  we  have  an  expla- 
nation of  passages  that  might  otherwise  be  doubtful  touch- 
ing the  organization  and  polity  of  the  apostolic  churches  as 
described  or  implied  in  the  New  Testament.  Having  seen 
that  the  process  of  organization  in  the  mother  church  at  Je- 
rusalem was  essentially  democratic  while  under  the  immedi- 
ate guidance  of  the  apostles,  we  need  positive  information  to 
convince  us  that  in  other  places  the  process  by  Avhich  be- 
lievers in  Christ  became  an  organized  body  was  materially 

^  The  original  shows  that  when  the  apostles  say,  "It  is  not  meet  that  we 
leave  the  Word  of  God,"  and  "  We  will  give  ourselves  to  prayer,"  etc.,  the 
pronoun  is  emphatic;  but  when  they  say,  "Whom  we  may  appoint,"  etc., 
the  pronoun,  being  merely  implied  in  the  form  of  the  verb,  can  have  no  spe- 
cial emphasis,  but  must  be  understood  as  including  the  multitude  of  disciples 
with  the  apostles.     See  the  entire  story,  Acts  vi. 


A.D.  1-100.]         WHAT    WAS    IN   THE    BEGINNING.  23 

different.  But  there  is  no  such  information.  On  the  con- 
trary, there  are  indications  that  in  every  place  the  society  of 
believers  in  Christ  was  a  little  republic. 

We  get  glimpses  of  the  church  at  Antioch,  which  soon 
became,  not  less  than  that  at  Jerusalem,  a  metropolitan  cen- 
tre of  Christian  ideas  and  enterprises.  Even  in  its  origin,  it 
startled  the  Pharisaic  portion  of  the  Jerusalem  Church  by 
receiving  into  fellowship  unproselyted  Gentiles.  It  was  a 
community  by  virtue  of  the  new  faith  which  the  members 
of  it  had  received,  and  which  bound  them  to  each  other. 
Some  of  its  members  were  prophets  and  teachers,  but  all 
Avere  brethren.  It  undertook  for  itself,  at  a  divine  sugges- 
tion, the  first  formal  mission  for  the  propagation  of  the  Gos- 
pel through  the  Gentile  world.  When  invaded  by  men  from 
Judea,  teaching,  in  the  name  of  the  original  apostles,  that  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  was  to  impose  the  ceremonial  and  national 
law  of  Moses  on  all  Gentile  believers  every  where,  it  resisted 
them  with  strenuous  disputation,  and  instead  of  waiting  for 
a  rescript  or  a  bull  from  Jerusalem,  it  sent  its  own  message 
thither,  not  only  to  learn  what  the  facts  were  there,  but  also 
to  tell  what  the  facts  were  at  Antioch,  and  to  show  that 
God's  blessing  had  attested  the  genuineness  of  a  Gospel 
without  Judaism.  Thus  it  obtained  from  the  apostles  and 
elders  at  Jerusalem,  and  from  "  the  whole  church  there,"  a 
conclusive  declaration  in  behalf  of  a  Christianity  free  for  all 
nations.^ 

We  get  more  than  glimpses  of  the  church  at  Corinth.  We 
see  its  parties  and  disputes ;  its  disorderly  and  almost  tur- 
bulent assemblies;  its  gross  offender,  whose  sin  was  a  re- 
proach to  the  whole  body  while  he  remained  uncensured, 
and  on  whom  the  heaviest  censure  must  therefore  be  inflicted 
by  the  many  in  a  full  assembly;  its  faults  and  excesses,  in- 
cidental to  an  ecclesiastical  democracy ;  the  strange  diversity 
and  multiplicity  of  gifts  among  its  members ;   and,  at  the 

'  Acts  xi.,  19-30;  xiii.,  1-3;  xiv.,  26-28;  xv.,  1-35;  Gal.  ii.,  1-14. 


24  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEAV    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.  [CH.  I. 

same  time,  its  ready  submission  to  rebuke  and  advice  from 
Paul  its  founder.  All  that  we  see  of  it  in  the  two  epistles 
addressed  to  it,  or  in  the  historic  record,  shows  us  an  intense 
vitality  working  in  discordant  elements  to  bring  them  into 
unity — an  organizing  force  striving  against  tendencies  to  an- 
archy, but  the  organization  not  yet  complete — a  fermenting 
chaos,  as  it  were,  of  Greek,  Jewish,  and  Roman  materials; 
seething  with  enthusiasms,  speculations,  infirmities,  and  er- 
rors; yet  hallowed  by  the  formative  Spirit  brooding  over  it, 
and  the  light  of  divine  truth  and  love  shining  into  it.^ 

Every  reader  of  the  New  Testament  books  may  gather  up 
for  himself  the  hints  which  they  give,  incidentally,  about  the 
churches  of  Galatia,  or  the  saints  at  Philippi  "  with  the 
bishops  and  deacons,"  or  "the  Church  of  the  Thessalonians," 
or  "  the  seven  churches  of  Asia,"  or  the  seemingly  unorgan- 
ized fraternity  of  believers  at  Rome.  He  may  observe  the 
traces  and  rudiments  of  organization  among  "  the  holy  and 
faithful  brethren  in  Christ "  at  Colosse,  or  among  those  whom 
Peter  and  James  and  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews addressed  in  their  writings.  He  may  scrutinize  the 
pastoral  epistles  to  ascertain  how  far  the  development  of 
ecclesiastical  institutions  had  advanced  in  the  latest  years 
of  the  apostle  Paul.  For  the  purposes  of  this  history,  it  will 
be  enough  to  give  some  results  of  such  an  inquiry  without 
repeating  the  process. 

I.  The  churches  instituted  by  the  apostles  were  local  in- 
stitutions only.  Nothing  like  a  national  church,  distinct  and 
individual  among  co-ordinate  national  churches — nothing  like 
a  provincial  church,  having  jurisdiction  over  many  congre- 
gations within  certain  geographical  boundaries,  natural  or  po- 
litical— appears  in  the  writings  or  acts  of  the  apostles.  A 
church,  as  mentioned  in  those  venerable  documents,  is  always 
local  or  parochial,  the  church  of  some  town  or  municipality, 
like  Ephesus  or  Thyatira,  Corinth  or  Cenchrea,  Thessalonica 

^  Acts  xviii.,  1-18.     Epistles  to  the  Corinthians,  ^jassm. 


A.D.  1-100.]         WHAT    WAS    IX   THE    BEGINNING.  25 

or  Philij^pi.  To  say  that  the  church  of  a  given  place  was 
always  congregational,  in  the  sense  of  never  meeting  for  wor- 
ship in  two  places  at  once,  or  of  not  being  divided  into  two 
or  more  assemblies,  with  one  body  of  "elders"  or  of  "bishops 
and  deacons,"  would  be  to  say  what  can  hardly  be  proved. 
But  that  the  organized  church,  in  the  primitive  age  of 
Christianity,  was  always  a  local  institution — never  national, 
never  provincial  or  diocesan — is  a  proposition  which  few  will 
deny. 

II.  Each  local  church  was  complete  in  itself,  and  was  held 
responsible  to  Christ  for  its  own  character,  and  the  character 
of  those  whom  it  retained  in  its  fellowship.  The  apostles, 
indeed,  had  a  certain  authority  in  all  the  churches,  as  they 
have  now  in  all  churches  built  on  their  foundation,  for  they 
were  Christ's  commissioned  witnesses  to  testify  w^hat  he  had 
taught,  as  well  as  the  facts  of  his  life  and  of  his  resurrection 
and  ascension.  If  a  question  arose  involving  a  doubt  as  to 
the  nature  and  extent  of  the  new  kingdom  of  heaven — for 
example,  the  question  whether  all  converts  to  Christ  must  be 
naturalized  in  the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  and  so  brought 
under  the  restrictions  and  obligations  of  the  national  law ;  or 
the  question  whether,  in  the  fellowship  of  Christ's  disciples, 
there  should  be  a  caste  distinction  between  converted  Jews 
and  converted  Greeks  or  Romans — there  might  be  "  no  small 
dissension  and  disputation,"  as  happened  at  Antioch  and  in 
many  other  places ;  but  if  the  question  could  not  be  settled 
in  that  way — if  the  disputants  could  not,  by  arguments  from 
the  prophetic  Scriptures  and  from  the  story  of  the  Gospel  as 
they  had  received  it,  bring  each  other  and  the  church  to 
agree  in  a  common  conclusion — the  apostles  were  of  course 
appealed  to  as  most  likely  to  know  the  principles  of  the  Gos- 
pel and  their  application,  or,  in  other  words,  as  most  likely 
to  know  the  mind  of  Christ. 

The  reference  from  Antioch  to  Jerusalem'  was  a  reference 

^  Acts  XV. 


26  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.  [CH.  I. 

to  the  apostles  for  information  concerning  the  nature  and 
genius  of  that  Gospel  which  they  were  commissioned  to  pub- 
lish, and  which,  at  that  time,  had  not  been  put  upon  record 
in  any  authoritative  Scripture.  If  we  permit  the  story  to 
speak  for  itself,  we  see  that  the  reference  was  not  made  be- 
cause the  church  at  Jerusalem  was  supposed  to  have  a 
metropolitan  jurisdiction  over  the  church  in  the  capital  of 
Syria,  but  because  some  ill-informed  and  narrow-minded  men 
from  Judea  had  alleged  that  the  practice  at  Jerusalem  under 
the  teaching  of  the  original  apostles  was  opposite  to  the 
practice  at  Antioch  and  in  the  churches  founded  by  Paul 
and  Barnabas,  whose  authority  as  apostles  was  itself  in  ques- 
tion. What  the  brethren  at  Antioch  wanted  was  informa- 
tion, full  and  conclusive,  on  a  question  of  fact,  and  that  in- 
formation could  be  obtained  at  Jerusalem,  if  they  would  send 
competent  messengers  to  get  it.  The  question  of  fact  was : 
Did  the  original  apostles,  in  the  holy  city  of  the  Jews,  preacli 
another  Gospel  than  that  which  was  preached  by  the  new 
apostle  to  the  Gentiles?  Had  they  contradicted  that  cath- 
olic doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  without  the  deeds  of 
the  law,  on  which  the  church  at  Antioch  was  founded,  and 
which  had  been  proclaimed  so  widely  by  the  missionaries 
from  that  new  centre  of  evangelization  ?  The  party  which 
Paul  afterward  stigmatized  as  "the  concision" — the  narrow, 
ultra-conservative,  anti-evangelical  party  of  the  apostolic  age 
— had  begun  to  show  itself;  and  it  must  be  encountered  and 
put  down  at  Jerusalem  as  well  as  at  Antioch.  So  far  as  the 
two  churches  were  concerned,  the  procedure  was  not  an  ap- 
peal from  an  inferior  court  to  a  higher,  but  only  the  sending 
of  a  committee  from  the  one  to  confer  with  the  other,  so 
that  there  should  be  no  misunderstanding  between  them  on 
a  question  of  great  interest  to  both. 

III.  Particular  churches,  in  that  age,  were  related  to  each 
other  as  constituent  portions  of  the  Universal  Church.  Their 
unity  was  their  one  faith  and  hope.  It  was  the  unity  of 
common  ideas  and  principles  distinguishing  them  from  all  the 


A.D.  1-100.]         WHAT    WAS    IN   THE    BEGINNING.  27 

world  besides — of  common  interests  and  efforts,  of  common 
trials  and  perils,  and  of  mutual  affection.  It  was  manifested 
not  in  their  subjection  to  a  common  jurisdiction,  nor  in  dog- 
matic formularies,  nor  in  identity  of  liturgical  forms,  but 
in  their  common  willingness  to  labor  and  suffer  for  Christ, 
and  to  do  good  in  his  name.  When  in  that  conference  at 
Jerusalem  it  had  come  to  be  clearly  understood  that  the 
Gospel  in  Palestine  and  the  Gospel  in  Syria  and  Cilicia,  and 
the  regions  beyond,  were  one  Gospel,  and  when  James,  Ce- 
phas, and  John  "gave  the  right  hands  of  fellowship  to  Paul 
and  Barnabas,"  one  permanent  manifestation  of  the  unity 
thus  ascertained  and  professed  was  stipulated  for.  Paul  tells 
us  what  the  stipulation  was — "  Only  that  we  should  remem- 
ber the  poor,  the  same  which  I  also  was  forward  to  do."^ 
The  "  contribution  for  the  poor  saints  at  Jerusalem,"  which 
Paul  had  been  concerned  in  at  Antioch,  from  the  beginning 
of  his  labors  there,^  and  which  he  was  zealous  for  wherever 
he  went,^  answered  the  purpose,  which  is  more  imperfectly 
answered  by  doctrinal  standards  and  books  of  common 
prayer,  by  ruling  priesthoods  and  ruling  preacherhoods,  or 
by  representative  assemblies  receiving  appeals  and  com- 
plaints from  all  points  of  the  compass,  and  exercising  juris- 
diction co-extensive  with  the  boundaries  of  nations.  One 
word  [Kou'ijjyia — Jcoi?i07iia],  in  its  twofold  meaning,  was  at  once 
the  "contribution"  for  impoverished  and  suffering  brethren 
and  the  "  communion  "  of  the  saints.  As  the  unity  of  the 
three  thousand,  after  the  day  of  Pentecost,  and  then  of  the 
five  thousand,  was  manifested  in  their  generous  and  loving 
Jcoinonia — when  none  of  them  said  that  aucrht  of  the  thinsfs 
which  he  possessed  was  his  own,  but  they  had  "  all  things 
common  ;"  so  afterward,  when  "  it  pleased  them  of  Macedo- 
nia and  Achaia"  to  do  the  same  sort  of  thing  for  suffering- 
brethren  whom  they  had  never  seen,  that  contribution  of 
theirs  was  the  recognition  and  manifestation  of  unity.     The 

'  Gal.  ii.,  9, 10.      =  Acts  xi.,  27-30.      ^  i  q^^^  ^vi.,  1 ;  2  Cor.,  viii.,  ix. 


28  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.  [oH.  I. 

communion  "  in  things  carnal,"  expressed  and  testified  the 
communion  in  "things  spiritual."^  More  significant  than 
any  other  symbol  could  have  been,  such  transactions  were 
a  demonstration  of  the  fact  that  all  the  particular  churches, 
however  separated  by  distance,  or  diversified  in  forms  and 
circumstances,  were  the  one  Catholic  Church  of  Christ.  In 
this  way  it  became  palpable  that  believers  in  Christ,  wher- 
ever dispersed,  were  members  of  one  holy  commonwealth, 
and  that  there  was  "  one  body  and  one  spirit,  even  as  they 
were  called  in  one  hope  of  their  calling."^ 

IV.  In  all  the  cliurches  there  was  one  rule  to  be  observed 
in  dealing  with  ofl:enders.  Christ  had  given  an  explicit  law  : 
"If  thy  brother  shall  trespass  against  thee,  go  and  tell  him 
his"  fault  between  thee  and  him  alone ;  if  he  shall  hear  thee, 
thou  hast  gained  thy  brother.  But  if  he  will  not  hear  thee, 
then  take  with  thee  one  or  two  more,  that  in  the  mouth  of 
two  or  three  witnesses  every  word  may  be  established.  And 
if  he  shall  neglect  to  hear  them,  tell  it  to  the  church:  but 
if  he  neglect  to  hear  the  church,  let  him  be  unto  thee  as  a 
heathen  man  and  a  publican."  ^  It  would  be  preposterous 
to  suppose  that  when  the  apostles  gathered  their  converts 
in  one  place  and  another  into  societies  for  spiritual  com- 
munion and  fraternal  helpfulness,  they  were  forgetful  of  that 
rule,  or  that  in  any  arrangements  which  they  made  for  the 
working  of  such  societies  that  rule  was  superseded. 

V.  The  earliest  stated  assemblies  of  Christian  worshipers 
were  formed  on  the  model  of  the  synagogue,  with  its  simple 
arrangements  for  orderly  worship  and  for  instruction  out  of 
the  Scriptures,  rather  than  of  the  Temple  with  its  priesthood 
and  its  ritual.  Centuries  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  there 
grew  up  in  Palestine,  and  afterward  among  the  Jews  of 
the  dispersion,  a  religious  institution  which  has  outlived  the 
Temple,  the  sacrifices,  and  the  altar  of  ancient  Judaism — the 
simple  institution  of  local  assemblies  on  the  Sabbath-day  for 

^  Rom.  XV.,  27.  =  Eph.  iv.,  4.  ^  Matt,  xviii.,  15-17. 


A.D.  1-100.]  WHAT    WAS    IX    THE    BEGINNING.  29 

prayer,  and  for  the  public  reading  and  explanation  of  the 
holy  books.  In  the  synagogue,  as  may  be  seen  now  wher- 
ever there  are  Jews  enough  for  a  meeting,  there  was  the 
worship  of  God  without  priest  or  altar — an  intelligent  wor- 
ship, impressive  in  its  simjjlicity.  The  Sabbath  created  for 
itself  the  synagogue,  and  thus  became  a  day  of  public  wor- 
ship every  where,  instead  of  being  only  a  day  of  religious 
abstinence  from  labor  and  of  home  enjoyment.  The  earliest 
Christians,  whether  in  Palestine  or  in  any  other  country, 
were  Jews,  or  "  devout "  Gentiles,  who  found  in  the  Gospel, 
not  a  new  religion,  but  the  fulfillment  of  God's  ancient  prom- 
ises ;  and  on  all  sides  they  were  regarded  as  a  Jewish  sect, 
like  the  Pharisees  or  the  Sadducees,  though  more  obnoxious 
because  of  the  newness  and  the  revolutionary  tendency  of 
their  opinions.  In  whatever  place  they  were  excluded  from 
the  assemblies  of  the  Old-school  Jews,  or  withdrew  of  their 
own  choice,  they  became  a  Christian  synagogue.  Perhaps 
in  some  instances  the  synagogue  itself  became  Christian. 
In  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  two 
words — EKicXrjtTia  [ecclesio],  and  crwayioyi]  [si/nagoge] — are 
used  interchangeably  for  the  word  which  in  the  English 
Bible  is  "  congregation."  Once  in  the  Xew  Testament  the 
latter  word  is  used  to  denote  a  Christian  assembly ;  ^  but  it 
seems  to  have  come  to  pass,  in  the  gradual  separation  of 
Christian  from  Jewish  congregations,  that  the  name  ecdesia 
was  given  distinctively  to  the  worshiping  society  of  believ- 
ers in  Christ. 

Such  were  the  churches  at  the  date  of  the  New  Testament 
Scriptures.  It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  j^rocess  of 
their  origin  and  organization  if  we  recollect  distinctly  what 
Christianity  was  at  the  beginning,  before  it  was  developed 
into  what  is  now  called  doctrine,  and  what  change  it  wrought 
in  the  consciousness  and  relations  of  those  who  received  it. 

^  James  ii.,  2  :  "If  there  come  into  your  synagogue,''  etc. 


30  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.  [CH.  I. 

1.  The  Gospel,  as  the  apostles  preached  it,  was  essentially  a 
story  and  a  hope — the  story  the  warrant  of  the  hope.  Even 
now  we  talk  about  "  the  story  of  the  Gospel,"  though  preach- 
ers, as  well  as  theologians,  ordinarily  find  it  more  natural  to 
talk  about  "  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel."  We  still  speak 
of  the  four  books  which  record  the  life,  death,  and  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus  as  "  the  four  Gospels."  But  to  the  apostles 
and  their  hearers  the  story  was  all — the  story  about  Jesus 
of  Nazareth.  All  doctrine  was  involved  in  that  story,  all 
duty  was  related  to  it.  All  the  inspiration  which  made  the 
believer  "  a  new  creature  "  was  in  the  story,  and  in  the  hope 
which  it  warranted.  Those  who  received  the  story,  and 
into  whose  consciousness  its  inspiration  entered,  were  related 
to  each  other  as  brethren.  The  religious  element  in  human 
nature  is  pre-eminently  social,  and  the  new  religious  con- 
sciousness which  believers  had  in  common  made  them  mem- 
bers of  a  new  society.  At  Philippi,  for  example,  Lydia  and 
the  other  converts  were  in  a  new  relation  to  each  other  from 
the  hour  of  their  conversion.^  By  virtue  of  their  new  faith 
and  hope,  they  became  at  once,  independently  of  any  conven- 
tional arrangement,  the  church  of  Christ  in  Philippi. 

2.  Wherever  the  Gospel  found  reception,  the  converts  must 
needs  have  their  meetings  for  prayer,  for  mutual  encourage- 
ment and  help,  and  for  such  instruction  as  the  best  informed 
and  most  gifted  among  them  could  impart,  if  no  other  teach- 
ing was  at  hand.  A  convenient  time  for  such  meetings — a 
season  redolent  of  sacred  memories — was  the  first  day  of  the 
week,  beginning  with  the  sunset  of  the  Sabbath,  and  this 
they  called  "the  Lord's  day."^ 

3.  The  first  converts,  who  were  the  earliest  members  of 
such  a  meeting,  had  made  profession  of  their  faith  in  Jesus 
the  Christ,  and  of  their  joining  themselves  to  the  new  king- 
dom of  God,  by  a  simple  ceremony  of  washing,  significant 
of  the  divine  cleansing  w^hich  was  their  entrance  into  a  new 

»  Acts  xvi.,  12-15,  40.  ^  Acts  xx.,  7 ;  1  Cor.  xvi.,  2  ;  Rev.  i.,  10. 


A.D.  1-100.]  WHAT    WAS    IN   THE    BEGINNING.  31 

and  holy  life.    Of  course,  any  who  afterward  came  into  their 
fellowship  were  in  like  manner  baptized. 

4.  As  at  Jerusalem,  so  in  all  other  places,  the  believers,  as- 
sembled for  mutual  help  and  the  mutual  expression  of  their 
fellowship  in  the  Gospel,  had  a  certain  "breaking  of  bread" 
together  in  remembrance  of  him  whom  they  gratefully  ac- 
knowledged as  Christ  the  Lord.  Their  eating  and  drinking 
as  at  their  Lord's  table,  and  their  initiatory  w\ashing,  seem  to 
have  been  all  that  was,  distinctive  in  their  formal  observ- 
ances, unless  we  add  their  habit  of  meeting  on  the  first  day 
of  the  week. 

5.  The  name  w^hich  they  gave  to  their  religion,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  story  by  which  it  was  inspired — the  name 
of  that  new  life  w^iich  they  had  begun  to  live — was  "godli- 
ness," or  the  right  worship  [evrrrjljela]  ;  and  the  name  by  which 
they  spoke  of  themselves  as  a  community,  or  of  each  other, 
was  "saints,"  or  "holy  brethren."  Having  such  thoughts 
and  aspirations,  they  were  under  a  necessity  of  sympathizing 
with  each  other  in  any  trouble,  and  of  helping  each  other  in 
any  distress.  That  necessity  w^as  not  imposed  upon  them 
merely  by  rule  or  stipulation — it  was  an  instinct  of  their 
new  life. 

6.  At  first,  such  a  society  may  have  been  without  formal 
organization.  The  most  capable,  by  a  certain  law  of  human 
nature,  would  lead  the  rest.  Each  member,  prompted  by  his 
new  ideas  and  sympathies,  would  use,  for  the  common  cause 
and  the  edification  of  his  brethren,  whatever  gifts  he  had,  and 
of  whatever  kind.^  But  soon  organization,  in  a  more  defi- 
nite way,  would  become  necessary.  There  must  be  a  recog- 
nized distribution  of  duties:  one  must  do  this  work,  another 
must  do  that.  Somebody  must  preside  in  their  meetings, 
and  take  the  lead  in  worship  and  conference  or  in  more  form- 
al teaching.  Somebody  (and  naturally  somebody  else)  must 
receive  contributions  and  expend  them.     If  we  would  know 

*  Rom.  xii.,  4-8. 


32       GENESIS  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CHURCHES.   [CH.  I. 

how  the  organization  was  completed  by  the  appointment  of 
officers  to  perform  these  various  functions,  we  must  forget 
for  the  moment  all  modern  systems  of  ecclesiastical  polity, 
and  let  the  apostolic  documents  teach  us.  Paul  and  Barna- 
bas revisited  carefully  the  places  where  they  had,  in  the  first 
visit,  made  disciples.  They  went,  "  confirming  the  souls  of 
the  disciples,"  or,  in  another  phrase,  "  confirming  the  church- 
es;" and  one  thing  in  that  work  of  confirming  or  consolidat- 
ing the  believers  in  the  fellowship  into  which  they  had  been 
introduced  was  the  leading  of  them  to  a  formal  choice  of  of- 
ficers in  each  society  as  "  the  seven  "  were  chosen  at  Jerusa- 
lem.i  It  was  to  that  work  of  "confirming  the  churches'" 
that  Timothy  and  Titus  were  afterward  designated,  when 
they  were  commissioned  to  set  in  order  the  things  that  had 
not  been  completed,  and  to  constitute  "  elders  in  every 
city."  When  a  missionary,  the  modern  evangelist,  in  some 
unevangelized  country,  gathers  his  converts  into  churches 
leads  them  in  the  choice  of  the  officers  necessary  to  the  com 
pleteness  of  their  organization,  trains  them  to  habits  of  self 
support  and  self-government,  and  at  last  leaves  them  to  the 
protection  of  God's  providence  and  the  guiding  influence  of 
God's  word  and  Spirit,  the  difference  between  him  and  those 
whom  he  ordains  in  every  city  is  surely  intelligible.  Such 
was  the  difl*erence  between  those  primitive  evangelists,  the 
apostles,  with  their  fellow-laborers,  and  the  presbyter-bishops 
in  every  city. 

Such  was  the  simplicity  of  organization  in  the  primitive 
churches.  There  was  no  complex  constitution,  no  studied 
distribution  of  powers,  no  sharp  distinction  of  ranks.  Each 
congregation — like  a  patriarchal  tribe,  like  a  Hebrew  village, 
like  a  synagogue — had  its  "  elders."  ^  Some  were  to  preside 
in  the  assembly,  leading  and  feeding  the  flock;  others  to 
serve  in  the  communion  of  the  saints,  almoners  for  the  church 
to  the  needy,  comforters  to  the  afflicted.     Bishops  or  dea- 

^  Acts  xiv.,  21-23  ;  xv.,  3G-41.        =  Stanley,  "Jewish  Church,"  181,  182. 


A.D.  1-100.]  WHAT    WAS    IN   THE    BEGINNING.  33 

cons,  they  were  servants  of  the  community,  not  lords  over 
it.  In  a  brotherhood  where  all  were  "kings  and  priests 
to  God,"  no  elder  was  king  over  his  brethren,  or  stood  as 
priest  between  them  and  tlie  Father  of  their  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

[The  reader  who  would  examine  more  in  detail  the  subject  of  the  fore- 
going chapter  may  be  referred  to  the  following  works  accessible  in  the 
English  language : 

Neander,  -'Planting  and  Training  of  the  Christian  Church  by  the  Apos- 
tles."    Books  I. -III. 

SchafF,  "History  of  the  Apostolic  Church."  .  Books  II. -IV. 

Mosheim,  "Historical  Commentaries."     Century  I.,  Sections  37-48. 

Milman,  "History  of  Christianity."     Book  II.,  Ch.  iv. 

Jacob,  "Ecclesiastical  Polity  of  the  New  Testament." 

Whately,  "Kingdom  of  Christ."] 

c 


34  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    OHUECHES.         [cH.  II. 


CHAPTER  II. 

FROM  THE  PRIMITIVE  TO  THE  PAPAL. 

When  Christianity,  by  the  conversion  of  Constantine 
(A.D.  312),  became  the  dominant  religion  in  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, the  church  polity  then  existing  was  in  some  respects 
widely  different  from  that  of  the  primitive  churches.  Less 
than  three  hundred  years  after  the  beginning  at  Jerusalem, 
the  government  of  churches  had  become  essentially  episcopal, 
though  the  bishops  every  where  were  elected  by  the  Chris- 
tian people.  Often,  if  not  always,  the  authority  of  the  bishop, 
instead  of  being  simply  parochial,  extended  over  many  con- 
gregations, the  mother  church,  in  which  the  bishop  had  his 
throne,  or  secies  [see],  being  surrounded  with  dependent  con- 
gregations, all  under  one  government.  The  bishop  had  un- 
der him  a  body  of  presbyters,  who  were  his  council  and  help- 
ers, and  to  whom  he  assigned  their  duties.  Not  unfrequently 
the  bishops  of  a  district  or  province  were  assembled  in  synods 
or  councils  to  deliberate  on  affairs  of  general  interest,  such 
as  disputed  points  of  doctrine,  and  questions  about  uniformity 
in  worship  and  discipline.  There  was  a  firmly  established 
distinction  between  clergy  and  laity,  the  clergy  consisting  of 
three  orders  or  gradations,  bishops,  presbyters,  and  deacons. 

It  has  been  sometimes  assumed  that  what  was  in  the  fourth 
century  must  have  been  from  the  beginning.  The  fact,  so 
conspicuous  in  the  survey  of  that  age,  that  the  then  existing 
church  polity  was  substantially  what  is  now  called  episcopal, 
has  been  thought  to  prove  that  the  churches  never  were  or- 
ganized and  governed  in  any  other  way ;  especially  as  there 
are  no  traces  of  any  revolutionary  conflict  by  which  one 
polity  was  substituted  for  another,  and  no  exact  line  can  be 
drawn  to   mark  the  beginning   of  the   distinction  between 


A.D.  100-400.]  FROM    PRIMITIVE    TO    PAPAL.  35 

presbyters  and  bishops,  or  the  transfer  of  power  from  self- 
governing  Christian  assemblies  to  a  hierarchy.  Constantine 
did  not  institute  the  episcopal  form  of  government  over  the 
churches — he  found  it  already  existing,  with  its  roots  in  the 
past;  and  in  adopting  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  the  em- 
pire, he  adopted  that  ecclesiastical  polity.  What,  then,  had 
become  of  the  polity  which  we  find  in  the  New  Testament? 
At  what  date  was  it  superseded  ?  Who  introduced  another 
constitution  in  the  place  of  it  ?  Such  is  the  outline  of  an 
argument  which  often  seems  conclusive. 

The  fallacy  lies  in  the  assumption  that  church  government,' 
once  instituted,  will  perpetuate  itself,  and  can  be  changed 
only  by  a  revolutionary  agitation.  It  is  easy  to  assume  that 
from  what  existed  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  century  we 
may  safely  infer  what  existed  in  the  early  part  of  the  third 
or  of  the  second ;  and  that  from  what  existed  when  Chris- 
tianity, early  in  the  second  century,  emerges  as  an  organized 
force  into  secular  history,  we  may  infer  with  certainty  what 
existed  in  that  formative  and  rudimentary  period  of  which 
we  have  no  record  but  in  the  New  Testament.  We  know 
that  the  church  polity  which  Constantine  found  in  full  shape 
and  action  was  modified  under  his  influence,  and  that  the 
history  of  the  church  through  all  the  ages  from  Constantine 
to  Luther  is  full  of  changes  in  the  polity  of  what  was  called 
the  Catholic  Church.  We  know,  too,  that  in  the  earlier  pe- 
riod, from  the  days  of  Ignatius  and  Polycarp  onward,  the 
constitution  of  the  Christian  commonwealth  throughout  the 
Roman  Empire,  the  powers  and  functions  of  its  officers,  and 
the  relations  of  local  churches  to  each  other,  had  been  grad- 
ually changed.  Need  we  marvel  then  if,  in  the  early  years 
of  the  second  century,  we  find  a  difi*erence  between  such 
bishops  as  Ignatius  of  Antioch  or  even  Polycarp  of  Smyrna 
and  those  whom  Paul  exhorted  at  Miletus,  or  those  to  whom 
he  addressed  the  epistle  which  he  wrote  for  the  church  at 
Philippi,  or  those  whom  he  described  in  his  Pastoral  Epistles? 

As  the  New  Testament  gives  us  no  system  of  definite  and 


36  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.  II. 

formulated  dogmas  in  theology,  so  it  gives  us  no  completed 
system  of  church  government.  Ecclesiastical  polity  grew, 
age  after  age,  just  as  theology  grew.  What  there  was  of  or- 
ganization in  the  primitive  churches  was  more  like  the  or- 
ganization of  a  seed  than  like  the  organization  of  the  tree  in 
its  maturity.  The  period  between  the  day  of  Pentecost  and 
the  middle  of  the  second  century — or  the  narrow^er  period 
between  the  date  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles  and  the  beginning 
of  that  century — could  not  but  be  a  period  of  rapid  develop- 
ment in  the  Christian  commonwealth.  Nor  did  the  growth 
of  ecclesiastical  polity  terminate  then.  It  went  on,  imper- 
ceptibly but  steadily,  to  the  age  of  Constantine — as  it  went 
on  afterward  to  the  age  of  Luther — as  it  goes  on  now,  even 
in  communities  most  abhorrent  of  progress  and  most  observ- 
ant of  traditions. 

The  circumstances  of  that  early  development  determined, 
in  many  respects,  its  character  and  tendency.  In  that  age 
the  churches  had  no  experience  to  guide  them  or  to  warn 
them.  They  knew  nothing  of  what  we  know  from  the  his- 
tory of  eighteen  centuries.  Why  should  they  be  jealous  for 
their  liberty?  How  should  they  be  expected  to  detect  and 
resist  the  beginning  of  lordship  over  God's  heritage?  We 
must  remember,  too,  that  in  those  times  of  inexperience  the 
development  of  the  Christian  organization  was  a  develop- 
ment under  pressure.  Christianity,  often  persecuted,  always 
"  an  illicit  religion,"  was  making  its  way  in  the  presence  of 
powerful  enemies.  Its  natural  leaders,  the  "bishops  and 
deacons,"  freely  chosen  in  every  church,  were,  of  necessity, 
intrusted  with  large  powers  over  the  endangered  flock,  and, 
of  course,  power  was  accumulating  in  their  hands.  The 
churches  were  in  cities ;  for  it  was  in  cities  that  the  new  doc- 
trine and  worship  could  obtain  a  foothold.  Such  churches, 
as  they  grew,  were  naturally  distributed,  rather  than  divided, 
into  a  plurality  of  assemblies  governed  by  one  venerable 
company  of  bishops  or  elders,  and  served  by  one  corps  of 
deacons.     Equally  natural  was  it  for  each  mother  church  to 


A.D.  100-400.]  FROM    PEIMITIVE    TO    PAPAL.  37 

become  still  more  extencled  by  spreading  itself  out  into  the 
suburbs  and  surrounding  villages;  all  believers  in  the  city 
and  its  suburbs,  or  in  the  country  round  about,  being  recog- 
nized as  constituting  one  ecdesia  with  one  administration. 

In  the  growth  of  such  a  community,  as  its  affairs  become 
more  complicated,  one  of  the  elders  or  overseers  must  needs 
become  the  moderator  or  chairman  of  the  board ;  and  to  him 
the  chief  oversight  must  be  intrusted.  At  first  that  presid- 
ing elder  is  only  a  leader,  foremost  among  brethren  who  are 
equal  in  authority ;  but  by  degrees  he  becomes  a  superior 
officer  with  distinctive  powers.  A  tendency  to  monarchy 
begins  to  be  developed  in  what  was  at  first  a  simple  republic. 
The  principle  of  equality  and  fraternity  begins  to  be  super- 
seded by  the  spirit  of  authority  and  subordination.  This 
may  be  noted  as  the  first  departure  from  the  simplicity  of 
the  primitive  polity. 

Primitive  bishops — the  elders  w^iom  the  apostles  ordained 
in  every  city — were  not  necessarily  preachers  in  an  official 
or  professional  way.  They  were  rather  a  board  of  managers, 
not  unlike  to  class-leaders  in  the  system  of  Wesleyan  Meth- 
odism. Some  of  them  "  labored  in  word  and  doctrine,"  and 
"  aptness  to  teach  "  was  regarded  as  an  important  qualifica- 
tion for  their  office.  It  Avas  their  duty  to  preside  in  the 
worshiping  assembly ;  to  watch  for  the  prosperity  of  the 
church  and  for  the  welfare  of  individual  souls,  and,  among 
other  things,  to  call  out  those  who  could  fitly  speak  a  word  of 
exhortation  or  of  doctrine — as  the  rulers  of  the  synagogue  at 
Antioch,  in  Pisidia,  called  out  Paul  and  Barnabas. ^  Preach- 
ing was  by  apostles,  evangelists,  prophets,  or  gifted  brethren 
[TTVEVjiaTLKOL],  somc  of  whom — if  there  were  such  in  the  church 
— would  be  among  the  elders.  In  the  next  generation,  w^hen 
the  apostles  and  their  fellow-laborers  in  the  first  preaching 
of  the  Gospel  had  passed  aw^ay,  the  duty  of  feeding  the  peo- 
ple with  knowledge,  and  of  speaking  to  them  the  word  of 

^  Acts  xiii.,  15. 


38  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.  TI. 

God,  came  with  additional  weight  upon  the  rulers  of  the 
Christian  synagogue.  Then  the  elder  who  is  to  preside  over 
liis  brethren  must  be  a  preacher  with  gifts  of  knowledge  and 
of  utterance;  and  the  elder  who  presides  and  preaches  be- 
comes the  bishop.  So  there  comes  to  be  a  distinction  of  rank 
and  of  functions  between  the  bishop  and  his  presbyters. 
Once  he  and  they  were  co-presbyters,  taking  heed  to  the  flock 
"  over  which  the  Holy  Ghost  had  made  them"  jointly  "  over- 
seers ;"  but  the  silent  progress  of  change  has  made  them  his 
subordinates. 

Such  was  the  rudimentary  beginning  of  episcopal  power 
over  the  churches.  At  first  it  was  simply  a  parish  episcopacy. 
While  the  mother  church  in  a  city — the  principal  and  cen- 
tral congregation — had  its  full  staff"  of  presbyters,  the  bishop's 
advisers  and  helpers,  it  naturally  followed  that  the  subordi- 
nate congregations  which  had  grown  up  in  the  near  vicinity 
were  supplied  with  presbyters,  or  teachers  and  rulers,  under 
the  direction  of  the  bishop,  and  responsible  to  him.  As  yet 
there  was  properly  no  diocese — only  a  large  and  growing 
parish,  with  dependent  and  outlying  districts.  But  by  im- 
perceptible gradations  the  parochial  bishop  of  the  second 
century  had  begun  to  be,  in  the  third  century,  a  diocesan 
bishop,  though  of  moderate  pretensions.  The  ancient  civili- 
zation, even  more  than  the  modern,  made  cities  the  seats  of 
power;  and  it  was  most  natural  for  the  mother  church  of  a 
city  to  become  the  mother  church  for  all  the  region  of  which 
that  city  was  the  market  town  or  the  political  centre.  At 
an  early  period  the  churches  of  Greece,  represented  by  their 
bishops,  began  to  meet  in  occasional  synods  for  consultation 
and  agreement  on  questions  of  doctrine  or  of  order;  and 
gradually  the  theory  was  accepted  of  an  oecumenical  church 
under  a  common  government,  and  of  councils  whose  decrees, 
or  "  canons,"  enacted  in  the  name  of  catholic  unity,  were  to 
have  the  force  of  law  in  all  particular  churches.  When 
Christianity  became,  under  Constantine,  the  religion  of  the 
emperor,  that  sagacious  statesman  found  already  developed 


A.D.  100-400.]  FROM    PRIMITIVE    TO    PAPAL.  39 

more  than  the  rudiments  of  the  ecclesiastical  government 
which  he  proceeded  to  establish.  He  divided  the  territory 
of  the  empire  into  ecclesiastical  patriarchates,  provinces,  and 
dioceses,  corresponding  with  the  divisions  and  subordinations 
of  civil  jurisdiction;  and  thus  the  system  of  diocesan  epis- 
copacy, as  it  exists  to-day  in  Roman  Catholic  Europe,  in  En- 
gland, in  Russia,  and  in  the  old  Christian  communities  of  the 
Turkish  Empire,  was  completed. 

Meanwhile  another  change,  departing  more  widely  from 
the  simple  Christianity  of  the  New  Testament,  had  been  in 
progress.  The  primitive  elder,  whether  bishop  or  deacon, 
was  only  an  officer  in  a  local  society  where  all  were  brethren. 
In  the  Christian  assembly,  as  in  the  Jewish  synagogue,  there 
were  rulers  to  preside  and  direct ;  there  were  "  prophets  and 
teachers ;"  there  were  servants  of  the  congregation ;  there 
was  the  obvious  distinction  between  brethren  appointed  to 
certain  duties  and  brethren  not  in  office;  and,  doubtless, 
those  brethren  who,  though  neither  bishops  nor  deacons,  had 
special  gifts  for  the  service  of  the  Gospel,  were  in  some  way 
recognized  and  distinguished;  but  the  distinction  between 
clergy  and  laity,  afterward  so  wide,  had  not  then  been  made. 
As  in  the  synagogue,  so  in  the  ecclesia,  there  was  neither 
sacrifice  nor  altar.  In  the  new  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  all 
were  "  kings  and  priests  unto  God  ;"  and  the  High-priest  was 
none  other  than  Jesus  the  Christ,  who,  having  ofi'ered  him- 
self once  for  all,  had  passed  beyond  the  veil,  and  was  making 
intercession  for  all  his  saints.  The  Christianity  of  that  age 
knew  nothing  of  a  clergy  superior  to  the  brotherhood  by 
virtue  of  some  mysterious  power  conferred  in  ordination,  or 
of  a  laity  dependent  on  priestly  mediation  for  access  to 
God.  But  certain  errors  adverse  to  spiritual  Christianity 
have  their  origin  in  human  nature,  ever  prone  to  superstition. 
In  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  the  rulers  of  the  Christian 
synagogue — the  bishops  and  deacons  appointed  to  certain 
duties  in  the  local  church — became,  by  gradual  change,  a 
Christian  priesthood. 


40  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.         [cH.  II. 

That  change  was  inseparably  connected  with  other  changes 
adverse  to  the  simply  spiritual  religion  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. It  was  not  without  significance  that  what  had  been 
only  a  teaching  and  guiding  ministry  in  tlie  churches  began 
to  be  called  by  names  and  titles  borrowed  from  the  Jewish 
or  the  Gentile  sacerdotal  system.  Superstition  had  already 
begun  to  misunderstand  and  pervert  the  symbolic  observ- 
ances instituted  by  Christ,  and  to  regard  them  as  having  a 
supernatural  efficacy  if  rightly  performed.  The  elder  who 
not  only  labors  in  word  and  doctrine,  and  helps  to  guide  the 
flock,  but  also  communicates  supernatural  grace  by  his  ma- 
nipulations, has  become  more  than  a  ruler  in  the  Christian 
synagogue — more  than  a  minister  of  the  Gospel.  He  is  a 
priest,  and  is  rightly  designated  by  sacerdotal  titles.  Being 
a  priest,  he  must  magnify  his  priestly  office.  Baptism,  in- 
stead of  being  only  a  symbolical  washing,  significant  of  the 
new  life  into  which  the  believer  in  Christ  is  born,  becomes 
itself  a  regenerative  act,  deriving  its  efficacy  from  the  priest 
who  administers  it.  The  primitive  elder  having  grown  into 
a  priest,  "  it  is  of  necessity  that  this  man  have  somewhat  also 
to  offer."  ^  Thus  the  primitive  eating  and  drinking  in  affec- 
tionate remembrance  of  Christ  becomes  a  mysterious  trans- 
action, invalid  without  a  ministering  priest;  and  at  last, 
when  superstition  has  been  formulated  into  dogma,  the  table 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  displaced  by  the  altar,  the  bread  has 
become  "the  host"  [hostia,  victim],  the  sign  is  confounded 
with  the  thing  signified,  the  simple  memorials  are  transub- 
stantiated into  the  actual  body  and  blood  and  divinity  of 
the  Incarnate  Son  of  God,  and  the  officiating  priest  by  a  few 
muttered  words  of  Latin  creates  the  world's  Creator. 

In  the  earliest  centuries,  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  the 
church  of  Antioch,  where  "  the  disciples  were  first  called 
Christians,"  and  whence  Paul  and  Barnabas  with  their  asso- 
ciates were   sent  forth   on   their  missionary  journeys;   the 

^  Heb.  viii.,  3. 


A.D.  100—400.]  FROM    PRIMITIVE    TO    PAPAL.  41 

churches  of  Ephesus  and  Smyrna,  where  there  had  long 
been  a  marvelous  confluence  of  ideas  and  superstitions,  as 
well  as  of  commerce  from  the  East  and  from  the  West;  and 
the  church  of  Alexandria,  where  the  new  religion  began  to 
claim  for  its  service  the  world's  philosophy  and  learning, 
were  more  important,  more  honored,  and  more  authoritative 
than  the  church  of  the  imperial  city.  Beginning  at  Jerusa- 
lem, Christianity  was  in  those  ages  more  of  a  power  on  the 
southern  and  eastern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  than  in 
any  European  country,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  Mace- 
donia and  Achaia.  Even  in  Rome  its  language,  as  at  Anti- 
och  and  Alexandria,  was  Greek.  But  when  Christianity  had 
organized  itself  more  widely  through  the  empire,  it  began  to 
be  felt  that  the  church  in  the  greatest  of  all  cities — the  centre 
of  the  world's  civilization,  and  the  seat  of  almost  universal 
empire — was  in  some  sense  the  most  important  of  all  churches. 
Gradually,  what  had  been  a  mere  feeling,  was  becoming  a 
claim  on  the  one  hand  and  a  concession  on  the  other,  and 
something  like  a  primacy  among  churches  was  recognized 
as  a  prerogative  of  the  church  in  the  imperial  city.  When 
the  seat  of  empire  was  transferred  to  the  New  Rome  on  the 
Bosphorus  by  the  Christian  emperor  Constantino,  the  con- 
sequent rivalry  between  the  church  of  Rome  and  the  church 
of  Constantinople,  and  between  their  bishops,  for  the  pri- 
macy, was  the  beginning  of  a  division  which  ultimately  sepa- 
rated the  Greek  Church  from  the  Latin,  the  Christianity  of 
the  East  from  that  of  the  West.  The  flrst  great  attempt  to 
convert  the  invisible  and  spiritual  unity  of  Christ's  Universal 
Church — such  unity  as  may  co-exist  with  freedom  and  di- 
versity— into  the  organic  unity  of  a  body  politic,  resulted  in 
the  first  great  schism. 

Rome  having  ceased  to  be  the  chief  city  of  the  world,  the 
claim  of  the  Roman  bishops  to  precedence  must  rest  upon 
another  foundation.  Was  there  not  a  primacy  among  the 
apostles?  Did  not  Christ  give  to  Peter  the  keys  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  ?     Was  it  not  to  Peter  that  he   said, 


42  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.  II. 

"Feed  my  sheep  ?"  How  could  Peter  govern  the  Universal 
Church  as  Christ's  vicar,  without  making  Rome  the  seat  of 
his  apostolic  empire  ?  Where  else  could  he  so  fitly  die  and 
leave  his  authority  to  his  successors?  So  came  the  pious 
fraud  which  made  Rome  the  apostolic  see,  and  its  bishop  the 
vicar  of  Christ.  This  was  a  deep  and  sure  foundation,  not 
to  be  shaken  by  so  trifling  an  event  as  the  removal  of  the 
imperial  court  from  the  Tiber  to  the  Bosphorus.  Resting 
on  such  a  foundation,  the  claim  of  primacy  among  bishops 
became  at  last  a  claim  of  supremacy  over  all  Christians. 
Tlie  continued  absence  of  the  imperial  court,  the  increasing 
imbecility  of  the  empire  in  the  West,  the  irruption  of  bar- 
barians even  into  Italy,  and  the  gradual  displacement  of  pa- 
ganism by  a  modified  Christianity,  combined  to  invest  the 
bishop  of  Rome  with  ever-growing  authority.  That  author- 
ity became,  in  the  absence  of  an  efficient  secular  govern- 
ment, a  barrier  against  anarchy.  The  bishop — "  the  holy  fa- 
ther"— was  the  father  of  the  people,  and  for  his  sake  the 
Greek  word  pcqm,  or  pope — a  familiar  title  applied  to  all 
priests  in  the  Greek  Church — was  transferred  into  the  Latin 
language.  In  pagan  Rome  the  priests  were  pontiffs,  and 
from  the  days  of  Numa  Pompilius,  there  was  always  a  Ponti- 
fex  Maximus,  or  supreme  pontiff.  When  the  Emperor  Au- 
gustus was  completing  the  subversion  of  the  republic,  and 
gathering  into  his  own  hands  all  the  elements  of  power,  he 
was  the  Pontifex  Maximus,  and  thenceforth  that  was  an  im- 
perial title ;  for  the  emperor  must  needs  be  the  highest  func- 
tionary of  the  national  religion.  But  when  the  emperors 
were  no  longer  pagan,  they  abdicated  that  old  pagan  priest- 
liood.  Why  then  should  not  the  chief  priest  of  the  new  re- 
ligion snatch  from  the  ruin  of  the  old,  and  claim  as  his  in- 
lieritance,  the  title  and  the  powers  of  Pontifex  Maximus? 

In  the  early  centuries,  the  law  of  God  revealed  in  the 
Scriptures  was  the  rule  of  life  for  Christians,  while  the  civil 
government,  being  unchristian,  had  another  standard.  There 
was  a  higher  law  for  Christians,  and  a  lower  law  for  those 


A.D.  100-400.]  FROM    PRIMITIVE    TO    PAPAL.  43 

who  adhered  to  the  old  religion.  A  striking  instance  of  tliis 
was  the  difference  between  Christians  and  unbelievers  in  the 
law  of  marriage  and  in  regard  to  offenses  against  chastity. 
While  the  Roman  law  was  not  quite  regardless  of  conjugal 
rights  and  domestic  sanctities,  it  permitted  divorce  almost 
at  the  discretion  of  either  party,  and  it  had  no  censure  for 
any  licentiousness  save  that  which  robbed  a  husband  of  his 
wife  not  yet  divorced.  But  among  Christians,  marriage  was 
a  religious  contract,  in  which  the  parties  were  united  under 
the  benediction  of  the  church,  and  which  was  indissoluble 
without  a  forfeiture  of  character  and  standing  by  at  least 
one  of  the  parties.  A  divorce  might  be  lawful  before  Caesar 
and  unlawful  before  God.  The  church,  therefore,  applying 
in  its  discipline  the  law  of  Christ,  must  take  cognizance 
of  every  divorce  within  its  jurisdiction,  and  at  its  tribunal 
the  invalidity  of  a  marriage  or  the  rightfulness  of  a  divorce 
might  be  tried  and  decided.  In  like  manner  other  offenses, 
whether  against  morals  or  against  religion,  if  committed 
by  persons  claiming  the  Christian  name,  came  under  the 
cognizance  of  the  church.  Moreover,  the  early  Christians 
had  been  taught  by  the  apostles  not  to  appear  against 
each  other  as  litigants  before  heathen  magistrates,  but  rath- 
er to  settle  their  differences  among  themselves  by  friendly 
arbitration.  Thus  in  each  church,  wherever  Christianity 
grew  into  an  organized  institution,  there  must  needs  be 
some  judicial  power  both  for  the  trial  and  censure  of 
public  offenses  and  for  the  adjustment  of  private  contro- 
versies among  the  faithful.  When  the  government  of  those 
early  churches  had  become  episcopal,  the  judicial  power 
rested  in  the  bishop  and  his  subordinates.  As  the  nom- 
inally Christian  population,  in  one  city  and  another,  be- 
came more  numerous,  age  after  age,  the  judicial  and  admin- 
istrative functions  of  the  clergy,  presided  over  by  the  bish- 
ops, became  continually  more  extensive  and  more  arduous. 
Less  scrupulous  than  the  apostles,  the  bishops  did  not  refuse 
to  take  upon  themselves,  in  addition  to  the  administration 


44  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.  II. 

of  spiritual  discipline  and  the  trial  of  causes  between  Chris- 
tian litigants,  various  duties  pertaining  to  what  we  have 
learned  to  call  the  secularities  of  the  church.  Dependent 
widows,  friendless  orphans,  and  all  arrangements  in  the  name 
of  the  church  to  relieve  the  poor,  were  under  their  care. 
Wills  were  referred  to  the  bishop  for  approval,  and  the  di- 
vision of  inheritances  fell  under  his  superintendence.  When 
the  hierarchical  principle  had  been  developed,  and  with  it 
the  correlate  principle  of  an  cecumenical  church,  governed  as 
one  body  by  its  hierarchy ;  and  when  councils,  provincial 
and  oecumenical,  had  begun  to  legislate  for  the  churches,  and 
their  decrees  or  canons  had  begun  to  be  recognized  as  law, 
the  idea  of  appeals  from  one  tribunal  to  another,  and  finally 
to  the  church  at  Rome,  as  the  tribunal  of  ultimate  resort, 
was  an  easy  consequence.  Constantine  and  his  successors 
in  the  empire,  having  removed  from  Christianity  the  stigma 
of  an  illicit  religion,  proceeded  to  recognize  and  legalize  the 
power  of  the  bishops  over  the  communities  under  their  care. 
The  distinction,  now  so  familiar,  between  church  govern- 
ment and  civil  government,  had  never  been  defined  or  dis- 
cussed, and  it  was  therefore  natural  for  the  ministers  of  a  re- 
ligion recognized  and  protected  by  the  state  to  become  in 
some  sort  and  to  some  extent  functionaries  of  the  imperial 
power.  The  decisions  of  bishops,  in  certain  cases,  were  to 
be  enforced  without  question  or  appeal  by  civil  officers. 
Certain  exemptions  and  immunities  were  gained  for  the 
clergy,  so  that  for  many  offenses,  and  at  last  for  all  offenses, 
they  were  responsible  only  to  the  ecclesiastical  authority, 
and  must  be  divested  of  their  sacred  character  by  the  church 
before  the  civil  power  could  touch  them.  Of  all  this,  noth- 
ing was  lost — indeed,  the  progress  of  ecclesiastical  usurpa- 
tion was  greatly  accelerated — when,  at  the  downfall  of  the 
empire  in  the  West,  its  barbarian  conquerors  were  them- 
selves conquered  by  the  church. 

In  the  new  world  which  slowly  emerged,  as  from  a  deluge, 
after  the  overthrow  of  the  old  civilization,  and  which  became 


A.D.  600-1500.]         FKOM    PEIMITIVE    TO    PAPAL.  45 

the  world  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  church,  converting  the 
barbarians  and  humanizing  their  ferocity,  was  among  the 
foremost  powers.  The  Catholic  Church,  with  its  one  ubiqui- 
tous priesthood,  with  its  superstitions  and  imposing  ritual, 
with  its  ever-growing  splendor  and  grandeur,  with  its  gov- 
ernment centralized  under  the  supreme  Pontiff  at  the  his- 
toric seat  of  universal  empire,  and  with  what  still  remained 
to  it  of  intellectual  culture  and  aspiration,  and  of  the  Chris- 
tian spirit  and  doctrine,  became  the  bond  of  union  among 
nations  of  diverse  races  and  dissonant  languages.  Its  canon 
law  was  a  distinct  body  of  jurisprudence,  supposed  to  be  au- 
thoritative over  all  men,  touching  all  human  relations,  and 
having  force  as  law  wherever  the  primacy  of  Rome  was  ac- 
knowledged— whether  on  the  Tiber  or  on  the  Thames,  whether 
in  France  or  in  Germany.  Its  tribunals  were  every  where 
co-ordinate  with  the  courts  of  secular  justice,  and  every 
where  the  magistrate  was  bound  to  respect  and  obey  their 
decisions. 

But  while  the  church  was  thus  encroaching  on  the  state, 
it  came  to  pass  that  the  state  in  its  turn  transcended  its 
legitimate  powers  and  invaded  the  province  of  the  church. 
At  every  stage  in  the  progress  of  the  hierarchy  and  of  the 
superstitions  which  made  it  powerful,  there  was  a  correspond- 
ino^  increase  of  the  wealth  devoted  to  religious  uses  and  con- 
trolled  by  ecclesiastical  functionaries.  The  election  of  bish- 
ops, after  being  transferred  from  the  people  to  the  clergy  of 
the  cathedral  churches,  had  been  virtually  given  to  the 
pope,  whose  approval  was  considered  necessary  to  the  valid- 
ity of  an  election.  By  similar  methods  the  control  of  ap- 
pointments to  lucrative  or  honorable  stations  in  the  church, 
throughout  all  the  countries  subject  to  papal  authority,  was 
gradually  centralized  in  the  court  of  Rome.  The  power  of 
the  pope  in  these  respects,  together  with  the  taxes  which  he 
levied  under  various  names  and  pretenses,  became  burden- 
some. In  one  country  and  another,  the  drain  on  the  national 
wealth  gave  rise  to  loud  and  frequent  complaint.     It  was  a 


46  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [cH.  II. 

serious  question  whether  the  ever-growing  wealth  of  the  ec- 
clesiastical power  should  bear  its  part,  with  the  wealth  of 
laymen  and  of  secular  corporations,  in  the  tribute  which 
wealth  pays  to  government  for  protection.  When  the  ec- 
clesiastical power  had  become  so  great  and  so  formidable, 
there  could  not  but  be  resistance  unless  the  state  were  con- 
tent to  be  merged  in  a  spiritual  despotism.  Some  limit 
must  be  set  to  the  power  that  was  centred  at  Rome,  or 
there  would  soon  be  no  other  power.  If  princely  archbish- 
ops, with  princely  dignity  and  jDOwer,  and  bishops  with  the 
wealth  and  state  of  barons,  were  appointed  by  the  pope,  and 
were  responsible  only  to  him  for  the  exercise  of  their  most 
formidable  powers,  the  king — the  secular  and  civil  govern- 
ment, under  whatever  name — must  have  a  voice  in  the  ap- 
pointment ;  and  the  ecclesiastical  lord,  no  less  than  the  lay 
lord,  must  be  invested  with  the  lands  and  temporal  posses- 
sions of  his  office  by  the  sovereign  to  whom  he  owed  alle- 
giance. The  conflict  about  ecclesiastical  investitures  which 
runs  through  the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  essentially 
a  conflict  between  the  church  and  the  state  about  the  ap- 
pointment of  church  officers.  No  such  conflict  could  have 
arisen  had  the  churches  retained  their  original  simplicity  of 
constitution.  But  when  the  church  had  become  a  hierarchy 
with  immense  possessions,  and  that  hierarchy  had  become 
complicated  with  all  the  machinery  of  government  in  the 
state,  the  long  conflict  between  the  popes,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  emperors  and  kings  on  the  other  hand,  was  an  inevitable 
consequence. 

The  celibacy  of  the  clergy  was  not  a  papal  invention.  In 
the  early  churches — as  early,  perhaps,  as  the  latter  part  of  the 
second  century — there  was  an  ascetic  sentiment  which  forgot 
that  "marriage  is  honorable  in  all,"  and  ascribed  superior 
sanctity  to  a  life  of  voluntary  celibacy.  Before  the  schism 
between  the  Greek  Church  and  the  Latin,  before  the  excision 
of  the  Oriental  churches,  that  sentiment  had  acquired  almost 
the  force  of  law.     Yet  to  this  day,  in  the  Greek  Church,  in 


A.D.  600-1500.]        FROM    PRIMITIVE    TO    PAPAL.  47 

the  Armenian  Church,  and  in  the  Nestorian,  celibacy  is  re- 
quired only  of  bishops,  who  are  therefore  selected  generally, 
not  from  among  the  parochial  clergy,  but  from  among  the 
monks  in  convents.  But  in  the  Latin  Church  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  an  unmarried  life  became  at  last,  after  many  conflicts, 
the  indispensable  rule  for  all  orders  of  the  hierarchy.  The 
priests  of  that  great  organization  which,  in  the  name  of 
Christ,  aspired  to  universal  dominion,  were  excluded  from 
the  most  important  and  sacred  of  human  relations,  and  were 
to  be  an  isolated  class  incapable  of  the  sympathies,  so  tender 
and  so  powerful,  w^hich  live  in  the  atmosphere  of  home  and 
of  household  love  and  duty. 

Yet  the  parochial  clergy,  dwelling  in  their  own  parishes, 
watching  over  their  own  flocks,  serving  their  neighbors  in 
the  ministrations  of  religion,  and  responsible  each  to  his  own 
bishop,  were  thought  to  be  not  sufficiently  cut  off  from  hu- 
man relations  and  sympathies.  Though  doomed  to  ignorance 
of  parental  and  conjugal  affections,  though  exempt  from  all 
ordinary  duties  in  society  and  from  responsibility  to  civil 
government,  they  were,  after  all,  citizens  in  some  sort,  and 
capable  of  patriotic  sympathies.  As  being  in  the  world, 
they  were  called  the  secular  clergy.  The  monastic  orders, 
those  great  fraternities  organized  under  vows  of  obedience 
as  well  as  of  celibacy,  were  the  regular  clergy — exempted 
from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  bishops,  withdrawn  from  the 
world,  generally  secluded  in  monasteries,  governed  by  their 
own  ofticers  like  a  military  organization — the  standing  army 
of  the  great  High-Priest  at  Rome. 

Into  those  bodies  many  of  the  best  men,  in  those  ages  of 
ignorance  and  violence,  were  attracted,  by  whose  withdrawal 
from  their  natural  relations  to  society,  the  world,  which  might 
have  been  the  better  for  their  example  and  their  direct  be- 
neficence, was  really  made  worse.  Doubtless  the  monasteries 
and  the  monastic  orders  were  instituted,  originally,  with  the 
best  intentions.  Doubtless  they  served  some  good  purpose 
under  that   divine   Providence   which   makes  all  thinofs  in 


48  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.         [CH.  II. 

some  way  subservient  to  itself.  It  may  be  that,  without 
them,  learning,  in  those  ages  of  barbarism,  would  have  per- 
ished. It  may  be  that,  without  them,  Christianity,  finding 
no  place  of  refuge,  would  have  degenerated  into  a  religion 
of  ferocity,  or  into  a  superstition  as  besotted  as  that  which 
exists  in  Abyssinia.  But  we  know  that  human  nature  in 
those  ages  was  just  what  human  nature  is  to-day.  We  know 
that  neither  human  passions  nor  human  infirmities  can  be 
laid  down  at  the  gate  of  a  monastery,  and  that  the  commu- 
nity within,  which  receives  the  neophyte  into  its  bosom  and 
subjects  him  to  its  ascetic  rules,  is  only  a  community  of  men 
in  a  most  unnatural  and  unmanly  condition.  We  know,  too, 
that  a  sentimental  Christianity,  shirking  all  natural  duties, 
retreating  from  conflict  with  the  world's  temptations,  and 
shutting  itself  up  in  a  cell  for  communion  with  God,  is 
Christianity  misguided,  morbid,  and  deformed,  and  that  it 
can  not  recover  its  vigor  or  its  divine  beauty  but  by  going 
forth  to  walk  and  to  work  in  the  sunshine.  Nor  can  we  for- 
get that  as  the  idea  of  monastic  life  had  its  origin  partly  in 
the  exaggeration,  but  still  more  in  the  perversion  of  Christian 
sentiments,  so  the  monastic  orders,  instead  of  having  any 
tendency  or  fitness  to  restore  the  true  ideal  of  the  Christian 
life,  were  the  foremost  supporters  of  superstition  and  the 
most  efficient  instruments  of  spiritual  despotism. 


A. D.  1517-55.]      CHURCH  POLITY  OF  THE  REFOKMATIOJM.  49 


CHAPTER  HI. 

WHAT   THE    KEFOEMATION    IN   THE    SIXTEENTH    CENTURY 
DID    FOR    CHURCH    POLITY. 

The  great  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  an 
attempt  to  recover  the  primitive  Gospel.  Its  success,  so  far 
as  it  was  successful,  resulted  from  a  concurrence  of  various 
forces  adverse  to  that  huge  system,  comjoacted  of  supersti- 
tion, scholastic  theology,  and  spiritual  despotism,  the  growth 
of  fourteen  hundred  years,  which  had  usurped  the  name  and 
place  of  Christianity.  The  revival  of  learning,  the  invention 
of  printing,  and  the  general  movement  toward  a  new  stage 
of  civilization,  were  among  the  influences  which  contributed 
to  the  result.  What  was,  at  first,  the  experience  of  individ- 
ual souls  struggling  with  the  great  question,  "How  shall 
man  be  just  with  God,"  driven  back  from  tradition  to  the 
Scriptures,  and  finding  rest  in  Christ  the  one  mediator  be- 
tween God  and  men,  became,  at  that  juncture,  a  new  an- 
nouncement of  the  primitive  Gospel.  As  in  the  first  cent- 
ury, so  in  the  sixteenth,  the  Gospel,  "  to  wit,  that  God  is  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  himself,"  was  the  power  that 
took  hold  of  human  souls  to  bring  them  out  of  darkness  into 
light,  and  out  of  bondage  into  the  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God. 
Agitation  ensued,  opposition,  conflict,  papal  excommunica- 
tion, and  at  last  a  permanent  revolt  of  Protestant  nations 
against  the  power  enthroned  at  Rome.^ 

In  what  ecclesiastical  forms  did  Protestantism  organize  it- 
self? When  -we  ask  this  question,  we  meet  the  fact  that 
every  where  a  political  element  was  combined  with  the  sim- 
ply religious  element  in  effecting  the  Reformation. 

^  See  "  History  of  the  Reformation,'"  by  Prof  George  P.  Fisher. 

D 


50  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.  111. 

The  Roman  Catholic  religion,  or,  more  properly,  the  church 
under  the  hierarchy  centralized  at  Rome,  was  every  where  a 
political  institution.  For  ages  the  pope  and  the  bishops  un- 
der him  were  often,  not  to  say  habitually,  in  conflict  with 
civil  o-overnments;  for  the  church,  professing  to  wield  the 
power  of  Him  to  whom  is  given  all  power  on  earth  and  in 
heaven,  was  every  where — whether  in  Spain  or  in  England, 
in  Sicily  or  in  Sweden — one  corporation,  claiming  its  exemp- 
tions and  its  privileges,  not  under  the  law  of  the  land,  but 
under  a  superior  law  of  which  it  was  itself  the  sole  expos- 
itor. The  ecclesiastical  theory  of  those  ages  was  not  "  a 
free  church  in  a  free  state,"  but  one  oecumenical  church  dom- 
inant over  subject  states,  and  executing  its  decrees  by  the 
ministry  of  the  secular  power.  If  there  were  to  be  a  church 
reformation,  the  movement  could  not  but  be  political  as  well 
as  religious.  In  the  relations  then  existing  between  church 
and  state,  if  the  institution  known  as  the  church  were  to  be 
reformed  in  its  doctrines,  worship,  and  polity,  that  reforma- 
tion must  take  place  either  under  the  protection  of  the  civil 
power,  and  in  some  sort  of  co-operation  with  it,  or  in  the  form 
of  a  political  revolution. 

Earlier  attempts  at  reformation  failed  and  were  suppress- 
ed because  they  came  to  be  regarded  by  the  civil  power, 
sooner  or  later,  as  dangerous  and  revolutionary.  But  when 
Luther  in  Northern  Germany,  and  Zwingli  in  German  Swit- 
zerland, began  simultaneously  to  recall  men's  minds  from  su- 
perstitious reliance  on  priestly  intercessions  and  manipula- 
tions, and  to  exhibit  the  freeness  of  God's  grace  and  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  way  to  be  saved,  the  political  condition  of  Eu- 
rope was  such  that  they  found  protection  and  encourage- 
ment, and  in  some  sense  help,  from  secular  powers.  Under 
the  Providence  that  rules  the  world,  the  success  of  the 
Reformation,  wherever  it  was  permanently  successful,  was 
brought  about  by  that  combination  of  political  with  relig- 
ious forces.  Luther  would  have  been  crushed  but  for  the 
constant  friendship  of  Frederick  the  Wise.     Zwingli  was  sus- 


A.D.  1517-55.]      CHURCH  POLITY  OF  THE  REFORMATIOX.  51 

tained  by  the  free  spirit  of  Switzerland.  The  little  republic 
of  Geneva  made  itself  illustrious  by  receiving  Calvin  as  its 
religious  leader. 

It  was  an  inevitable  consequence  of  this  combination  that 
every  where  the  political  element  of  the  Reformation  pre- 
dominated in  determining  the  form  of  ecclesiastical  institu- 
tions and  arrangements.  Already,  in  each  state  or  kingdom, 
the  church  was  inseparably  complicated  with  the  state.  No 
reformation  was  possible  but  by  asserting  and  maintaining 
liberty  for  the  state  or  kingdom  against  the  tyranny  of  Rome 
or  of  the  ecclesiastico-political  power.  Acquiescence,  on  the 
part  of  the  Reformers,  in  such  arrangements  for  public  wor- 
ship and  for  the  religious  instruction  of  the  people  as  could 
be  obtained  by  consultation  and  agreement  with  the  polit- 
ical power  that  protected  them,  was  inevitable  in  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  conflict.  What  they  were  contending  for 
was  the  primitive  Gospel  rather  than  the  primitive  church 
polity.  The  ecclesiastical  polity,  therefore  —  especially  in 
relation  to  the  forms  of  public  worship,  the  selection  and 
designation  of  ministers,  and  the  provision  for  their  support 
— was  determined,  in  each  reformed  state  or  kingdom,  not  so 
much  by  a  reference  to  the  primitive  model  as  by  considera- 
tions of  temporary  and  local  convenience. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  national  churches,  independent  of 
each  other  as  well  as  of  Rome,  came  into  being.  No  doubt 
there  had  been  long  before  some  rudimentary  notion  of  a 
national  church  ;  but  in  the  Reformation,  as  wrought  out  by 
the  co-operation  of  religious  and  political  forces,  that  idea 
was  developed,  and  became  the  basis  of  ecclesiastical  organ- 
ization. It  was  assumed,  as  a  first  principle,  that  the  people 
of  a  Christian  state  or  kingdom,  being  all  baptized,  were  all 
Christians  and  members  of  Christ's  church  in  that  state  or 
kingdom.  It  was  also  assumed  that  the  Christian  people 
were  represented  in  their  government,  and  that  whatever 
rights  and  powers  in  matters  ecclesiastical  had  originally  be- 
longed to  the  Christian  laity,  but  had  been  usurped  by  the 


52  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEAV    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.         [CH.  III. 

pope  or  the  clergy,  were  in  the  people  as  politically  organ- 
ized, or  (wherever  the  Reformation  came  by  a  political  revo- 
lution) in  the  Protestant  as  distinguished  from  the  Roman- 
ist people.  Arrangements  were  therefore  made  for  the  re- 
forming of  ecclesiastical  institutions  —  such  as  public  wor- 
ship, the  choice  and  induction  of  ministers,  the  administra- 
tion of  sacraments,  and  the  infliction  of  censures — in  con- 
formity with  the  theory  which  it  will  be  convenient  to  des- 
ignate as  Nationalismi.  The  underlying  idea  was  that  the 
baptized  people  of  an  independent  state,  being  a  distinct 
church,  were  as  independent  of  Rome  as  Rome  was  of  them, 
while  they  were  also  a  constituent  part  of  the  true  church 
catholic.  Before  the  Reformation  there  was  no  ecclesias- 
tical independence  any  where  in  Western  Christendom.  Na- 
tional churches,  if  any  body  thought  of  such  a  thing,  were 
only  portions  of  one  organized  and  governed  church — the 
Roman  Catholic. 

Where  kings  or  sovereign  princes  led  the  Reformation, 
and  had  the  shaping  of  its  institutions,  the  reconstructed 
church  government  was,  essentially  if  not  in  name,  episcopal. 
In  proportion  as  the  political  element  concurring  with  the 
religious  reformers  was  popular,  the  new  church  government 
was  essentially  presbyterian,  or  classical  and  synodical,  tend- 
ing toward  the  independence  and  self-government  of  each 
particular  congregation,  but  guarding  the  official  authority 
as  well  as  the  parity  of  the  clergy.  At  Geneva,  Calvin,  not 
to  be  out-voted  by  fellow-presbyters  unfriendly  to  the  Ref- 
ormation, established  a  consistory  in  which  representatives 
of  the  laity,  annually  chosen,  were  consessors  with  the  clergy. 
That  consistory  at  Geneva  became  a  model  of  government 
for  the  churches  of  the  Reformation  in  France,  in  the  Neth- 
erlands, in  various  German  cities  and  principalities,  and  in 
Scotland  ;  and  the  laymen  whose  voices  and  votes  in  the 
consistory  were  to  check  the  power  of  the  ministers  were 
afterward  called  "lay-elders." 

It  would  be  folly  to  suppose  that  the  Reformers,  as  dis- 


A.D.  1517-55.]      CHURCH  POLITY  OF  THE  REFORMATION.  53 

tinguished  from  the  secular  powers  that  protected  or  be- 
friended them,  regarded  themselves  as  having  achieved  their 
own  ideal  of  church  organization.  On  the  contrary,  they 
seem  to  have  regarded  the  various  ecclesiastical  systems  re- 
sulting from  the  Reformation  as  obviously  imperfect,  and  to 
have  accepted  them  as  the  best  they  could  obtain  in  the  cir- 
cumstances. Luther,  Zwingli,  Calvin,  Cranmer,  and  Latimer 
wanted  something  better,  and  hoped  that  in  another  age  the 
work  begun  by  them  would  be  completed.  The  religious 
tendency,  in  the  reconstruction  of  ecclesiastical  institutions, 
was  in  the  direction  of  a  theory  which  was  nowhere  realized.^ 

Nine  years  after  the  beginning  of  the  Reformation  in  Ger- 
many (1526),  there  was  prepared  for  the  churches  of  the  great 
principality  of  Hesse,  or  Hessia,  a  scheme  of  ecclesiastical  or-" 
der  which  was  almost  a  purely  Congregational  platform,  but 
which  never  went  into  operation  there.  Francis  Lambert, 
of  Avignon,  was  the  author  of  it.  A  fugitive  from  France, 
he  had  found  in  Philip,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  a  protector 
and  a  patron.  Li  an  informal  synod  convened  by  Philip  to 
settle  the  Reformation  in  his  principality,  the  exiled  French- 
man had  the  opportunity  of  presenting  certain  theses  on 
church  government  which  he  had  published  not  long  before 
under  the  title  of  "Paradoxes;"  and  a  plan  of  reformation 
was  adopted  by  the  synod  in  conformity  with  the  views 
which  he  had  gained  from  a  careful  and  independent  study 
of  the  Scriptures. 

The  method  which  Lambert  proposed,  and  which  the  in- 
formal synod  seems  to  have  heartily  approved,  provides,  first, 
for  the  organization  of  local  churches.  It  "  contemplates  the 
formation  of  a  pure  congregation  of  true  believers,  in  which 
the  right  of  ecclesiastical  self-government  should  be  exer- 
cised immediately  by  the  congregation,  not  mediately  through 
representatives  and  delegates."  Reasons  for  the  self-govern- 
ment of  parochial  churches  were  adduced  from  the  Script- 

'  Gieseler,  "Eccl.  Hist."  (translated  by  Prof.  H.  B.  Smith),  iv.,  520-532. 


54  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  III. 

ures.  "The  law  of  Christ,  in  Matt,  xviii.,  requires  it  to  be 
'told  to  the  church'  when  a  brother  will  not  hear  admoni- 
tion ;  but  the  church  of  God  is  nothing  but  the  assembly  of 
believers.  The  believers  must  therefore  be  assembled  from 
time  to  time,  otherwise  it  would  not  be  possible  for  the  con- 
tumacy of  an  offending  brother  to  be  reported  to  them. 
Furthermore,  according  to  the  word  of  Paul  (l  Cor.  v.),  the 
believers  must  be  gathered  together  for  the  public  censure 
and  excommunication  of  a  scandalous  person.  There  are 
other  purposes,  also,  for  which  the  believers  must  assemble 
— to  pass  judgment  on  the  sentiments  of  their  pastors;  to 
elect,  and,  if  necessary,  to  depose  bishops  and  deacons  (that 
is,  parish  ministers  and  their  assistants),  and  officers  for  the 
care  of  the  poor,^  and  to  decide  on  any  other  matter  that 
concerns  the  whole  Church. 

"  Accordingly,"  said  the  author  of  the  plan,  "  we  ordain 
that  in  every  parish,  after  the  Word  of  God  has  been 
preached  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time,  a  meeting  of  believ- 
ers shall  bo  held,  in  which  all  men  who  are  on  Christ's  side 
and  are  reckoned  with  the  saints  shall  come  together,  in  or- 
der that  they  may,  in  conjunction  with  the  bishop  " — that 
is,  the  bishop  of  that  parish — "  settle  all  the  affairs  of  the 
church  according  to  the  word  of  God.  Believing  women 
may  attend  the  meeting,  but  without  the  right  of  voting. 

"  But  inasmuch  as  opposers  of  the  faith  ought  not  to  be 
admitted  to  the  assembly  of  the  faithful,  let  a  separation  be- 
tween true  and  false  brethren  be  undertaken  in  the  follow- 
ing way :  After  the  word  of  God  has  been  preached  for  a 
time,  let  the  minister  invite  all  believers  to  a  meeting  on  the 
next  Sunday,  at  which,  however,  only  those  are  expected  to 
be  present  who  are  willing  to  submit  themselves  to  the 
word  of  God,  and  in  particular  to  the  rule  that  whosoever 

'  Another  account  of  this  platform  describes  it  as  providing  for  "two  kinds 
of  church  officers  "  — the  pastors  (episcopi)  and  their  helpers  (diaconi,  or  adju- 
tores  episcoporum),  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  almoners  (diaconi  ecclesiaruin) 
on  the  other  hand. 


A.D.  151  7-55. J      CHURCH  POLITY  OF  THE  REFORMATION.  55 

gives  offense  by  evil-doing  shall  be  put  out  of  the  cliurcli. 
After  this  has  been  repeatedly  announced,  and  after  the 
people  have  been  individually  exhorted  to  repentance  and 
amendment  of  life,  shall  the  meeting  take  place.  Those  who 
are  not  willing  to  devote  themselves  to  a  life  of  Christian 
piety  shall  withdraw,  and  shall  be  considered  not  as  breth- 
ren, but  as  heathen  men  and  'those  that  are  without.'  Let 
prayer,  however, be  made  for  these  as  well  as  for  the  brethren. 

"The  power  of  excommunication  and  absolution  by  no 
means  rests  with  the  bishop  alone,  but  only  with  him  in 
conjunction  w^ith  the  church.  But  those  who  wish  to  be 
numbered  with  the  saints,  and  to  put  themselves  under  the 
Christian  discipline,  are  to  be  enrolled  in  a  register — not 
shrinking  from  this  even  when  they  are  very  few  in  num- 
ber; let  them  be  assured  of  this,  that  through  the  operation 
of  God's  word  their  number  shall  speedily  increase,  even 
though,  at  the  outset,  it  be  no  more  than  twenty  or  thirty. 

"  In  the  congregations  of  brethren  or  saints  that  may  be 
organized  as  the  result  of  these  preparatory  steps,  all  church 
business  is  to  be  transacted — choice  of  ministers,  excommu- 
nication, restoration ;  the  bishop,  to  whom  it  belongs  to  pre- 
side in  the  meeting,  seeing  to  it  that,  in  accordance  with  the 
word  of  God,  every  one  shall  have  a  patient  hearing." 

Such  was  the  plan  which  Francis  Lambert,  in  the  early 
years  of  the  Reformation,  had  deduced  from  the  precedents 
and  principles  of  the  New  Testament.  The  church,  as  or- 
ganized and  governed,  was  to  be  a  local  or  parochial  institu- 
tion, complete  in  every  parish.  It  was  to  be  constituted,  not 
by  including  all  baptized  inhabitants,  but  by  a  separation 
of  its  members  from  such  as  were  not  willing  to  submit  them- 
selves to  the  word  of  God,  and  by  mutual  agreement.  The 
church  thus  constituted  was  to  be  self-governed,  having 
power  over  its  members  to  admonish  the  erring,  to  excom- 
municate the  stubborn  offender,  to  restore  the  penitent.  It 
was  to  have  power  over  its  officers,  both  bishops  and  deacons 
— the  power  to  elect,  to  judge,  and,  if  necessary,  to  depose. 


56  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  III. 

The  bishop — each  church  having  a  bishop  or  bishops  of  its 
own — was  to  preside  in  the  church-meeting,  but  was  to  have 
no  power  of  exclusion  from  communion  without  the  votes  of 
the  brethren.  In  every  j^arish  the  brotherhood  of  believers 
was  to  be,  simply  and  purely,  a  spiritual  democracy  under 
Christ. 

Another  part  of  the  platform  made  provision  for  a  yearly 
synod  of  the  churches,  which  was  to  be  "composed  of  the 
assembled  pastors  and  of  delegates  chosen  immediately  be- 
fore in  the  church-meetings."  The  functions  and  powers  of 
the  synod  were  defined  in  a  remarkable  accordance  with  the 
powers  and  functions  of  councils  in  the  polity  of  the  New 
England  churches,  the  most  important  difterence  being  that 
the  synod  was  to  meet  annually  at  a  fixed  time  and  place, 
instead  of  being  convened  like  a  New  England  council  on  a 
definite  occasion  and  at  a  special  call.  In  the  annual  meet- 
ing there  was  to  be  an  examination  of  the  doings  of  congre- 
gations in  the  choice  and  removal  of  pastors,  an  inspection 
and  superintendence  of  the  three  visitors  annually  appointed, 
and  finally  the  decision  of  questions  and  difficulties  laid  be- 
fore them  by  the  churches.  But  it  was  declared  in  an  in- 
tensely Congregational  spirit,  "  that  the  word  of  God  out- 
weighs a  majority ;"  ^  and  that  the  decisions  of  the  synod 
were  to  be  set  forth  solely  on  the  authority  of  substantial 
proofs  from  Scripture  for  the  edification  of  all  the  churches, 
and  were  to  be  announced  not  as  decrees  or  statutes,  but 
only  as  "  the  answer  of  the  Hessian  Synod." 

Yet — and  this  was  the  greatest  defect — the  church  was  not 
to  be  completely  separated  from  the  state,  but  was  still  to 
be  in  some  sort  under  the  superintendence  of  the  secular 
government.  The  business  occurring  between  one  synod 
and  the  next  was  to  be  in  the  charge,  partly,  of  a  select 
synodal  committee  of  thirteen,  partly  of  three  visitors,  to  be 

*  '■^ Major  enim  est  Dei  sermo  omni  hominum  multitudine ;  et  melius  est 
adherere  uni  habenti  verbum  Domini,  quam  multis  proprium  judicium  se- 
(luen'iibus." 


A.D,  1517-55.]      CHURCH  POLITY  OF  THE  REFORMATIOX.  57 

named  for  the  first  year  by  the  landgrave  and  afterward  by 
the  synod,  and  p'artly  of  the  church  in  the  synodal  city  of 
Marburg.  The  same  synodal  committee  was  to  superintend 
and  manage  the  business  of  the  synod  when  in  session.  In 
the  selection  of  this  committee,  the  prince,  with  the  nobility, 
if  present  in  the  assembly,  was  to  have  the  right  of  voting ; 
and  in  its  sessions  the  prince,  with  such  persons  as  he  should 
introduce,  and  the  nobility  lavorable  to  the  Gospel,  might  be 
present. 

This  Hessian  platform  almost  extinguishes  the  idea  of 
clerical  power — an  idea  essential  to  all  the  national  churches 
produced  by  the  Reformation,  to  the  Presbyterian  no  less 
than  to  the  Episcopal.  A  Presbyterian  system  of  church 
government  may  change  the  priest  into  a  minister  of  the 
word  of  God,  and  may  deny  that  there  is  any  cleansing  effi- 
cacy or  sacrificial  value  in  his  manipulation  of  the  sacra- 
ments; but  if  it  make  all  preachers,  by  virtue  of  their  or- 
dination, and  independently  of  their  being  called  to  office  in 
a  local  church,  rulers  by  divine  right  in  the  church  at  large, 
it  simply  changes  the  ruling  priesthood  into  a  ruling  preach- 
erhood.  But  there  was  as  little  of  ruling  preacherhood  as 
of  ruling  priesthood  in  Francis  Lambert's  system.  The  plat- 
form which  he  deduced  from  the  Scriptures  recognizes  no 
bishop  at  large,  nor  any  bishop  other  than  the  simple  pastor 
of  a  parish  church.  It  knows  nothing  about  what  is  called 
the  "  indelibility  of  ordination,"  but  affirms  that  "  each  pas- 
tor and  pastor's  assistant  is  appointed  for  such  time  only  as 
he  shall  preach  God's  word  purely  and  simply,  and  shall 
walk  worthily,"  a  position  which  assumes  and  explains  the 
duty  of  the  assembled  believers  "  to  pass  judgment  on  the  sen- 
timents of  their  pastors."  It  excludes  the  idea  that  only  mem- 
bers of  a  clerical  order  can  be  chosen  to  the  pastoral  office ; 
and,  on  the  contrary,  it  maintains  that  "  citizens  and  working- 
men,  whatever  their  business  may  be,  if  only  they  are  devout, 
blameless,  and  instructed,  are  eligible  to  the  pastorate."  It 
even  maintains  that  men  may  be  preachers  without  being  in 


58  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.         [CH.  III. 

any  sense  cliurcb  officers.  Where  it  prevails,  there  shall  be 
no  clerical  body,  not  even  a  body  of  pastors,  with  an  exclu- 
sive right  to  speak  in  the  congregation  ;  for  it  holds  that 
"men  without  office  in  the  church,  being  devout  and  strong 
in  the  Scriptures,  are  not  to  be  forbidden  to  preach,  inasmuch 
as  there  is  an  inward  call  from  God." 

Had  this  scheme  been  proposed  to  Luther  as  an  ideal  theo- 
ry of  church  polity,  or  as  a  plan  which  might  be  adopted  at 
a  later  stage  of  the  Reformation,  doubtless  he  would  have 
most  heartily  approved  it ;  for  the  ideal  which  it  portrayed 
was  substantially  his  own.  But  when  the  question  of  at- 
tempting such  a  polity  in  the  churches  of  Hesse  was  submit- 
ted to  him  by  Philip,  early  in  the  following  year,  he  could 
not  believe  that  the  time  had  come  for  building  the  house  of 
God  according  to  the  pattern  given  in  the  Scriptures.  He 
advised  the  prince  not  to  promulgate  the  plan  immediately, 
but  first  to  appoint  capable  men  over  the  parish  schools  and 
churches ;  and  when  a  number  of  these  should  have  come 
practically  and  cordially  into  agreement,  and  others  should 
be  ready  to  follow  them,  to  introduce  the  plan  by  a  public 
ordinance.  Thus  a  certain  usage,  being  first  settled,  might 
be  elevated  into  law.  Evidently  the  great  Reformer  thought 
that  the  scheme  was  a  devout  imagination  not  to  be  realized 
in  that  age  when  so  much  depended  on  princely  patronage ; 
and  that  Lambert  was  only  an  amiable  dreamer. 

Luther's  advice  prevailed,  and  Lambert's  platform  of 
church  discipline  was  set  aside  to  wait  for  better  times. 
Melanchthon,  as  well  as  Luther,  thought  that  the  age  was  not 
ripe  for  the  emancipation  of  the  churches  and  the  coming  in 
of  a  simply  evangelical  church  polity.  Accordingly,  the  or- 
dering of  ecclesiastical  afiairs  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
reforming  landgrave;  and  his  "instructions"  to  the  ecclesi- 
astical visitors,  issued  after  much  deliberation,  made  no  men- 
tion of  local  self-governed  churches  with  their  several  bishops 
and  their  synods,  but  only  of  parish  priests  and  superintend- 
ents.    Two  years  later  Lambert  died,  but  not  till  he  had  re- 


A.D.  1530-39.]      CHURCH  POLITY  OF  THE  REFORMATION.  59 

iiewed  his  testimony  with  unfailing  aspiration.  "When  shall 
we  have  the  joy  of  seeing  our  churches  ordered  strictly  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  Christ?  Where  is  the  power  of  ex- 
communication, that  most  essential  thing  to  any  church, 
which  so  many,  in  opposition  to  the  plain  testimony  of  the 
Scriptures,  are  throwing  away?" 

Another  year,  and  instead  of  provisional  officers  for  the  su- 
perintendence of  the  clergy  and  the  parishes,  superintendents 
for  life  were  appointed.  Then  followed  a  second  assembly 
at  Homberg,  by  whose  advice  the  duty  of  admonishing  and 
of  excommunicating  unworthy  parishioners  was  laid  upon 
pastors  only.  At  last,  after  thirteen  years  of  such  reforma- 
tion by  the  secular  power  with  the  advice  of  reforming  theo- 
logians, the  lay-eldership  was  introduced  into  the  Hessian 
churches ;  and  the  share  of  each  local  church  (or  rather  of 
each  parish)  in  its  own  government  was  that  it  might  choose 
half  of  the  lay-elders  in  its  consistory,  the  other  half  being- 
chosen  by  the  magistrate  to  represent  and  maintain  the  de- 
pendence of  the  church  on  the  civil  government. 

In  this  last  arrangement,  "  the  ideal  plan  of  Lambert  van- 
ished away,  leaving  behind  it  no  enduring  fruit."  ^ 

^  Congregational  Quarterly^  July,  1864,  p.  276-280;  Lechler,  "Geschichte 
der  Presbyterial-  und  Synodal -verfassung  seit  der  Reformation"  (Leyden, 
183-1),  1-1-21;  "Leben  und  ansgewahlte  Schriften  der  Vater  lind  Begriin- 
der  der  reformirten  Kirche  (Elberfeld,  1861),  ix.,  41-47.  These  writers  re- 
fer to  RiCHTER,  "Sammlung  Evangelischer  Kirehenordnungen, "  i. ,  58  sq., 
which  contains  the  original  document:  "Reformatio  Ecclesiarum  Hassice 
juxta  certissimam  sermonum  Dei  regulam  ordinata  in  venerabili  synodo,"  etc. 


60  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.        [CH.  IV. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    ENGLISH    EEFOKMATION    AND   THE    PURITANS. 

In  England,  the  twofold  character  of  the  Reformation  was 
more  conspicuous  than  in  any  other  country.  Elsewhere,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  great  revolution  was  effected,  under  the 
providence  of  God,  by  a  concurrence  of  political  with  relig- 
ious forces.  Princes  and  statesmen,  or  the  leaders  of  petty 
republics,  on  the  one  hand,  and  reforming  preachers  and  writ- 
ers on  the  other  hand,  were  fellow- workers.  But  in  England, 
more  than  any  where  else,  the  Reformation  resembled  some 
great  river  formed  by  the  confluence  of  two  streams  which, 
like  the  Missouri  and  the  Mississippi,  refuse  to  mingle  though 
flowing  in  one  channel.  On  one  side,  it  was  a  religious 
movement  among  the  people,  an  inquiry  after  truth  and  sal- 
vation, a  revolt  of  earnest  and  devout  souls  against  the  su- 
perstition, the  false  doctrine,  and  the  despotic  priesthood 
that  hindered  their  access  to  God.  On  the  other  side,  it  was 
a  politico-ecclesiastical  revolution,  an  attempt  of  king  and 
Parliament  to  drive  out  of  the  kingdom  the  insolent  intru- 
sions and  vexatious  exactions  of  the  court  of  Rome,  a  break- 
ing of  what  had  long  been  felt  as  a  galling  yoke  on  the  neck 
of  a  proud  people. 

Considered  as  a  religious  movement,  the  Reformation  in 
England  began  with  Wycliffe,  more  than,  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  before  Luther.  Fitly  has  the  stout-hearted  En- 
glishman been  called  "the  morning  star"  of  the  day  which 
had  its  sunrise  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Though  protected 
for  a  M'hile  by  some  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  nobles,  and 
encouraged  by  the  sympathy  of  Parliament  in  his  Luther-like 
attacks  on  the  mendicant  orders  and  the  pope,  he  was  not 
sustained  by  any  adequate  political  power  in  his  efforts  to 


A.D.  1370-1534.]       THE    ENGLISH    REFORMATION.  Gl 

evangelize  the  people.  His  disciples,  under  the  name  of  Lol- 
lards— a  reproachful  designation  imported  from  the  Continent 
— carried  on  his  work  after  his  death ;  and  though  perse- 
cuted, and  often  giving  their  testimony  in  prison  and  at  the 
stake,  they  could  not  be  suppressed.  The  Protestant  mar- 
tyrology  of  England,  long  before  the  age  of  Luther,  is  rich  in 
records  of  their  suffering  heroism.  Their  books,  multiplied 
by  the  slow  process  of  transcribing,  were  widely,  though  se- 
cretly, distributed;  were  read  with  closed  doors  in  many  a 
household  and  in  many  a  private  assembly ;  and  were  hand- 
ed down  from  sire  to  son  as  precious  heir-looms.  Their  itin- 
erant preachers,  passing  quietly  from  place  to  place,  and 
eluding — though  not  always — the  vigilance  of  their  enemies, 
kept  alive  the  tradition  of  their  doctrine,  and  strengthened 
the  scattered  disciples  by  making  them  know  each  other's 
faith  and  patience.  When  the  Reformation  began  on  the 
Continent,  Wycliffism  or  Lollardism  was  soon  lost,  or  rather 
perpetuated,  in  Lutheranism  or  Protestantism,  which  found 
in  England  a  soil  well  prepared  for  it. 

Considered  in  the  other  aspect,  namely,  as  a  political  or 
national  movement,  the  English  Reformation,  at  its  begin- 
nins:,  had  no  visible  connection  with  the  relioious  movement 
among  the  people.  The  history  of  England  through  the 
Middle  Ages  is  largely  the  history  of  a  chronic  conflict  be- 
tween the  state,  as  represented  by  the  king  and  Parliament, 
and  the  church,  as  governed  by  a  foreign  potentate,  the 
pope.  But  that  change  in  the  ecclesiastical  establishment 
of  the  realm  which  is  commonly  called  by  English  writers 
"the  reformation  from  popery,"  began  when  Henry  YIIL, 
who  had  written  a  book  against  Luther,  and  had  been  re- 
warded by  the  pope  with  the  title  "Defender  of  the  Faith" 
— a  title  borne  by  all  his  successors — procured  the  consent  of 
Parliament  to  his  declaring  himself  the  Supreme  Head  (1534) 
under  Christ  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  then  constrained 
the  clergy  in  Convocation  to  acknowledge  his  supremacy. 
Other  changes  followed.     First  was  the  suppression  of  the 


G2  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  IV. 

monasteries  and  the  confiscation  of  their  property  in  lands 
and  treasures.  That  great  wealth,  instead  of  being  reserved 
(as  the  religious  reformers  would  have  chosen)  to  be  a  fund 
for  the  education  of  the  people,  or  for  any  public  use,  was 
lavishly — but,  on  the  whole,  perhaps  not  unwisely — distrib- 
uted by  the  king  among  his  nobles  and  courtiers.  Thus  the 
breach  between  England  and  Rome,  politically  considered, 
was  not  only  widened  but  made  irreparable.  Every  lord 
who  held  any  of  the  rich  domains  once  belonging  to  mo- 
nastic corporations  might  be  relied  on  for  a  steadfast  opposi- 
tion to  all  measures  tending  toward  a  restoration  of  the  old 
order  of  things. 

Such  being  the  position  of  the  government,  it  became  im- 
portant, in  a  political  view,  that  the  popular  mind  be  turned 
against  Rome.  Accordingly,  the  Bible,  translated  into  En- 
glish by  Tyndale  a  few  years  before,  instead  of  being,  as  it 
had  been,  a  prohibited  book,  smuggled  in  from  the  Continent, 
was  permitted,  after  a  few  unimportant  corrections,  to  be 
printed  and  published  in  England  ;  and  thus  that  great  point 
— the  right  of  the  people  to  read  the  Scriptures — was  indi- 
rectly conceded.  But  it  was  not  till  the  following  reign 
(that  of  the  boy  king,  Edward  YL,  1547)  that  the  authorized 
doctrine  and  the  devotional  formularies  of  the  Established 
Church  were  subjected  to  the  hands  of  such  reformers  as 
Cranmer  and  Ridley ;  and  then  it  was  that  the  scattered  and 
persecuted  followers  of  WycliiFe,  as  well  as  the  many  who 
had  caught  the  new  opinions  then  spreading  on  the  Conti- 
nent and  floating  across  the  sea,  found  their  cause  victorious, 
as  they  supposed,  in  England.  Thus,  in  that  reign,  and  aft- 
erward at  the  commencement  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  (1558), 
there  was  a  temporary  union  of  the  religious  reformation, 
originating  and  spreading  among  the  people,  wnth  the  polit- 
ico-ecclesiastical reformation  conducted  by  the  government. 
The  ecclesiastical  establishment  was  so  modified,  and  the  ad- 
ministration of  it  was  so  changed,  that  the  remnant  of  Lol- 
lardism  and  the  adherents  of  the  Continental  reformers  re- 


A.D.  1534-62.]  THE    ENGLISH    REFORMATION.  63 

garded  it  as  having  virtually  come  over  to  them.  Accord- 
ingly they  were  no  longer  excluded  from  the  Church  of  En- 
gland, but  were  recognized  as  among  the  most  zealous  of  its 
members.  By  their  enthusiasm,  propagating  itself  among 
the  people,  the  reformed  establishment  was  strengthened 
against  the  common  enemy,  and  the  chances  of  a  reconcilia- 
tion with  Rome,  and  of  a  consequent  restitution  of  confiscated 
church  property,  were  greatly  diminished. 

That  politico-ecclesiastical  reformation  brought  the  Church 
of  England,  considered  as  an  establishment,  with  its  endow- 
ments and  its  clergy,  into  a  complete  dependence  on  the 
crown,  and  a  closer  alliance  than  before  with  the  landed  aris- 
tocracy. In  former  ages,  the  Catholic  Church  in  England, 
though  connected  with  the  state  and  to  some  extent  influ- 
enced by  the  crown,  had  an  independence  which  made  it 
sometimes  formidable  to  the  secular  power.  But  the  great 
change  begun  under  Henry  VIIL,  and  made  permanent  by 
the  necessities  and  the  policy  of  his  daughter  Elizabeth,  dis- 
turbed the  balance  of  power  by  annexing  to  the  crown  all 
that  dominion  over  the  Church  which  had  formerly  belonged 
to  the  pope.  The  ecclesiastical  courts,  with  an  extensive  ju- 
risdiction which  in  these  days  would  be  called  civil,  became 
virtually  the  king's  courts,  and  thei-e  was  no  more  appealing 
of  causes  to  Rome.  By  the  removal  of  the  "  mitred  abbots  " 
from  the  House  of  Lords— where  they  with  the  bishops  had 
always  been  a  majority — and  by  the  loss  of  the  immense 
wealth  which,  at  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries,  had  pass- 
ed into  the  hands  of  the  king,  and  thence  into  the  hands  of 
the  lay  aristocracy,  the  separate  importance  of  the  clergy  as 
one  of  the  estates  of  the  realm  was  almost  destroyed.  At 
the  same  time,  the  great  amount  of  church  patronage — in- 
cluding the  appointment  of  thousands  of  clergymen  to  their 
livings — which  was  transferred  from  the  monastic  corpora- 
tions to  the  king  and  to  lay  lords,  separated  the  church,  as 
an  establishment,  more  than  ever  from  the  interests  and  sym- 
pathies of  the  lower  orders,  and  completed  its  connection,  not 


64  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  IV. 

merely  with  the  state,  but  with  the  king  and  the  nobility. 
To  all  this  must  be  added  that  unlimited  superintendence 
over  ecclesiastical  affairs  and  over  the  religion  of  the  people 
which  was  considered  as  belonging  to  the  king  by  virtue  of 
his  being  Head  of  the  Church. 

Such  was  the  political  bondage  of  what  is  called  the  Church 
of  England,  as  the  government  reformation  left  it :  all  the 
great  ecclesiastical  dignities,  and  thousands  of  the  humbler 
benefices,  at  the  disposal  of  the  government;  the  people,  ex- 
cept in  here  and  there  an  anomalous  instance,  excluded  from 
influence,  direct  or  indirect,  over  the  appointment  of  their  own 
parochial  ministers;  no  synods  or  conventions,  general  or 
diocesan,  with  a  lay  representation,  to  regulate  matters  of 
common  interest ;  no  convocation,  even  of  the  clergy,  per- 
mitted to  assemble  save  at  the  king's  command,  or,  when  as- 
sembled, permitted  to  engage  in  any  business  save  by  the 
king's  particular  warrant. 

Another  result  of  that  revolution  in  the  ecclesiastical  in- 
stitutions of  England  is  conspicuous  in  the  subsequent  his- 
tory. The  National  Church  contained,  thenceforward,  the 
elements  of  internal  strife.  Two  dissimilar  movements,  as 
we  have  seen,  were  united  in  the  English  Reformation,  but, 
though  united  as  it  were  mechanically,  they  were  not  blend- 
ed. An  irrepressible  conflict  was  the  consequence — a  con- 
flict which  continues  to  this  day.  On  one  hand  was  the 
great  body  of  the  old  clergy,  with  their  opinions  and  their 
sympathies  and  prejudices  mostly  unchanged.  Having  been 
coerced  into  the  acknowledgment  of  bluff  King  Harry  as 
their  Supreme  Head  on  earth,  they  were  led  or  driven  from 
one  change  to  another,  till  they  found  themselves  using  the 
English  service-book  instead  of  the  old  Latin  Missal,  and 
reading  from  their  pulpits,  as  well  as  they  could,  the  "  Hom- 
ily against  Idolatry,"  in  edifices  despoiled  of  the  relics  and 
the  images  which  once  adorned  them.  These  men  were  nat- 
urally a  conservative  party  with  reactionary  tendencies. 
They  had  accepted  the   revolution,  not   spontaneously,  nor 


A.D.  1534-62.]         THE    ENGLISH    REFORMATION.  65 

with  a  burning  convrction  that  the  old  system  was  full  of 
great  errors  and  abuses  which  must  be  reformed  at  all  haz- 
ards, but  passively,  and  under  the  force  of  a  habit  of  subor- 
dination. The  law  which  compelled  their  celibacy  having 
been  taken  away,  they  had  generally  become  married  men ; 
and  their  lawful  wives  and  children — lawful  while  the  Ref- 
ormation lasted — were  hostages  for  their  fidelity  to  the  Prot- 
estant establishment.  At  first,  and  for  a  long  time,  the  pa- 
rochial clergy  were  generally  of  this  description,  for  how 
could  it  be  otherw^ise?  Their  tendency  as  a  body  was  to 
keep  the  Reformation  stationary  by  their  dead  weight,  and 
to  perpetuate  in  the  Reformed  Church  of  England  the  relig- 
ious ideas  in  which  they  had  been  educated  before  the  change. 
They  were  likely  to  feel  that  the  Reformation  had  gone  far 
enough ;  and  w-hen  they  looked  upon  the  churches  no  long- 
er smoking  and  fragrant  with  incense,  nor  gorgeous  with  the 
gold  and  gems  of  the  altar;  when  they  saw  pictures  and 
statues,  before  which  the  faithful  once  kneeled  in  worship, 
borne  away,  and  the  holiest  relics  cast  out  as  unclean  things  ; 
still  more,  when  they  saw  some  old  monastic  building  deso- 
late and  falling  into  ruin  ;  most  of  all,  when  they  looked  upon 
some  stately  pile  where,  in  the  good  old  times,  grave  abbots 
had  given  alms  to  the  poor,  and  had  dispensed  due  hospital- 
ity to  pilgrims  and  to  princes,  now  possessed  by  some  sacri- 
legious lord,  masque  and  revel  and  the  noise  of  boisterous 
banquets  succeeding,  to  the  chanted  prayers  of  men  devoted 
to  religion — it  would  not  be  strange  if  they  felt  that  the 
Reformation  had  already  been  carried  too  far. 

Here  was  one  great  party  in  the  National  Church,  which, 
having  submitted  to  the  new  arrangements  without  much 
of  a  revolutionary  spirit,  looked  toward  the  past  with  a  feel- 
ing akin  to  regret.  But  on  the  other  hand,  the  ecclesiastical 
establishment  had  received  into  itself  a  very  different  sort 
of  men  —  wide-awake  men,  who  were  not  merely  reformed 
by  an  order  from  the  King  in  Council  or  by  an  act  of  Parlia- 
ment, but  wei'e  reformers  in  their  own  persons — men  whose 

E 


Q6  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  IV. 

ideas  of  reformation  had  come  to  them  by  tradition  from 
Wycliffe,  or  by  communication  and  sympatliy  with  reform- 
ers on  the  Continent — men  whose  quarrel  with  Rome  was 
not  on  the  question  of  ecclesiastical  supremacy  merely,  but 
on  the  whole  system  of  religion — men  whose  protest  against 
the  pope,  instead  of  being  careful  and  measured,  was  ut- 
tered as  in  words  of  fire,  and  who  were  ready  to  die  for 
their  testimony.  These  were  the  movement  j^arty — the 
radicals  —  the  destructives  —  if  any  choose  to  call  them 
by  such  names.  With  them,  or  with  many  of  them,  ref- 
ormation, even  to  the  destruction  of  every  thing  which  they 
regarded  as  idolatrous  or  popish,  was  a  passion.  Their  sym- 
pathies were  with  the  people  more  than  with  the  court;  they 
were  fitted  for  influence  with  the  people ;  and  therefore,  when 
the  government  would  thoroughly  bring  off"  the  people  from 
the  old  ways,  it  called  these  men  to  its  aid ;  and  some  of 
them — such  as  the  plain-dealing  Latimer,  Fox,  the  author  of 
the  "  Book  of  Martyrs,"  the  sturdy  and  scrupulous  Hooper, 
and  even  (at  one  time)  that  intractable  Scotchman,  John 
Knox — were  placed  in  stations  of  honor  and  wide  influence. 
While  the  Reformation  was  going  forward,  men  of  this  qual- 
ity were  in  their  element ;  but  when  its  progress  was  arrest- 
ed, and  the  government  liad  resolved  that  it  should  go  no 
farther,  they  were  disappointed  and  dissatisfied.  So  long  as 
the  permanency  of  the  changes  which  the  government  had 
undertaken  to  introduce  was  not  yet  sure,  and  fiery  spirits 
were  needed  to  carry  the  work  forward,  these  men  were  nec- 
essary to  the  government,  and  were  therefore  in  favor ;  but 
when  the  business  of  reforming  was  no  longer  in  hand,  and 
the  objects  which  sovereign  and  courtiers  had  in  view  were 
felt  to  be  well  enough  secured,  such  men  were  no  longer  in 
alliance  with  the  court.  Gradually  they  fell  back  to  their 
original  position  among  the  people  as  reformei-s  on  their  own 
account. 

Then  began  that  age-long  conflict  in  the  Church  of  En- 
gland between  the  government  Protestantism,  on   the   one 


A.D.  1560.]  THE    PURITANS.  67 

hand,  completed  and  immovable,  and  the  demand,  on  the 
other  hand,  for  a  more  thorough  reformation  that  should 
carry  the  National  Church  and  the  national  Christianity  back 
to  the  original  purity  portrayed  in  the  Scriptures.  On  one 
side  were  the  court,  and  those  who  were  called  "  the  court 
clergy."  On  the  other  side  were  the  Puritans,  so  named 
from  their  demand  for  purity  in  the  worship  of  God  and  in 
the  administration  of  Christ's  ordinances.  As  in  many  a 
similar  conflict,  the  line  of  division  was  not  very  sharply 
drawn  between  the  parties.  There  were  Puritans  more  or 
less  decided  in  their  opinions,  and  more  or  less  resolute  in 
word  and  deed ;  but,  at  first,  there  was  no  Puritan  party  act- 
ing in  concert  under  acknowledged  leaders. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  Puritanism  in  England,  and  such 
was  its  position  three  hundred  years  ago,  when  Elizabeth 
was  qfteen.  It  was  not,  nor  did  it  intend  to  be,  a  secession 
or  separation  from  the  National  Church.  It  must  not  be 
thought  that  the  Puritans  were  "Dissenters"  in  the  modern 
meaning  of  that  word.  They  were  not  Congregationalists 
in  their  theory  of  the  church ;  nor,  at  first,  were  they  even 
Presbyterians.  Certainly  the  great  body  of  them,  in  the 
earliest  stages  of  the  conflict,  had  not  arrived  at  the  conclu- 
sion that  diocesan  episcojDacy  must  be  got  rid  of  At  first 
the  most  advanced  of  them  were  only  "  Nonconformists," 
deviating  from  some  of  the  prescribed  regulations  in  the  per- 
formance of  public  worship.  As  Christian  Englishmen,  they 
were,  according  to  the  theory  which  I  have  called  National- 
ism, members  of  the  Church  of  England ;  and  what  they  de- 
sired was  not  liberty  to  withdraw  from  that  National  Church 
and  to  organize  what  would  now  be  called  a  distinct  "de- 
nomination ;"  nor  was  it  merely  liberty  m  the  National  Church 
to  worship  according  to  their  own  idea  of  Christian  simplic- 
ity and  purity — though,  doubtless,  many  of  them  would  have 
been  contented  with  that.  What  they  desired  was  reforma- 
tion of  the  National  Church  itself  by  national  authority. 

While  the  conflict  was  in  its  earliest  stage,  the  episcopal 


08  GENESIS    OF    TilE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.  IV. 

element  in  the  constitution  of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment 
seems  not  to  have  been  seriously  called  in  question.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  conceded  by  those  who  desired  more  refor- 
mation that  the  king  might  lawfully  appoint  officers  to  su- 
perintend and  govern  the  clergy,  and  those  superintend- 
ents, though  called  bishops,  were  regarded  as  deriving  their 
authority  from  the  king.  Puritanism  first  appeared  in  the 
form  of  a  protest  against  certain  ceremonies  and  vestments 
which  were  required  by  law  in  the  celebration  of  public  wor- 
ship. The  Act  of  Uniformity,  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth,  established  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  as  the 
only  form  for  the  worship  of  God  by  any  religious  assembly  ; 
and  every  minister  deviating  from  the  directions  printed  in 
that  book  (called  "  rubrics,"  because  originally  printed  with 
red  ink)  was  liable  to  severe  penalties.  Some  of  those  di- 
rections required  the  use  of  certain  ceremonies  which  were 
regarded  by  the  more  advanced  Protestants  as  teaching  or 
sanctioning  an  unchristian  and  pernicious  superstition.  The 
sign  of  the  cross  in  baptism,  the  use  of  a  ring  in  marriage, 
and  kneeling  to  partake  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  were  particu- 
larly objected  to  on  that  ground.  But,  most  of  all,  some  of 
the  vestments  required  to  be  worn  by  ministers  in  the  pre- 
scribed worship  were  protested  against.  Nobody  found  fault 
with  the  scholar's  gown  which  the  clergy  wore  in  preaching. 
On  all  sides,  that  was  admitted  to  be  a  becoming  dress  for 
those  who  served  as  teachers  in  the  church,  and  something 
of  the  kind  was  universal  in  the  Protestant  churches  of  oth- 
er countries.  But  the  priestly  surplice,  which  the  minister 
must  wear  when  administering  sacraments  or  performing 
"  divine  service,"  was  associated  in  all  minds  with  the  super- 
stitions which  Protestants  abhorred,  and  which  the  Refor- 
mation had  undertaken  to  abolish.  It  was  a  sign  that  the 
official  who  wore  it  was  not  merely  a  recognized  minister  of 
the  Gospel,  but  a  veritable  priest  with  supernatural  functions. 
Every  body  knew  that  the  wearing  of  it  was  required  out 
of  deference  to  popular  superstition.     To  the  ignorant  peo- 


A.D.  1560.]  THE    PURITx\.NS.  69 

pie,  who  were  disposed  to  hanker  after  the  old  ideas,  it  had 
as  real  a  meaning  as  the  "  wearing  of  the  green  "  has  now 
to  Irish  Fenians.  To  earnest  Protestants  it  had  the  same 
sort  of  meaning  which  the  gray  uniform  of  the  "  Confeder- 
ates "  in  the  late  war  had  to  the  "  boys  in  blue  "  who  were 
fighting  for  the  Union.  The  controversy  about  ceremonies 
and  vestments,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  was  essentially  the 
same  with  the  Ritualistic  agitation  in  the  reign  of  Victoria 
— an  agitation  which  shakes  the  Church  of  England  to-day, 
and  is  not  wholly  unfelt  in  the  United  States.  After  so 
many  ages  of  philosophic  sneering  at  the  Puritans  for  their 
scrupulousness  about  such  matters  as  the  cut  and  color  of 
a  prescribed  garment,  all  parties  in  the  English  establish- 
ment are  now  compelled  to  confess  that  questions  about 
things  indifferent  in  themselves — as,  for  example,  whether  the 
French  flag  shall  be  white  or  tricolor — may  acquire  a  signif- 
icance which  shall  make  them  worth  dying  for.  That  con- 
flict three  hundred  years  ago  was  the  same  in  principle  with 
the  conflict  now  ;  for  behind  the  sacerdotal  millinery  and  frip- 
peiy,  behind  the  significant  and  pompous  ceremonies,  there 
stood  then,  as  there  stands  now,  a  body  of  anti-evangelical 
and  really  antichristian  doctrine — another  Gospel,  which  is 
really  no  Gospel  at  all — another  theory  than  that  of  Paul 
and  of  Jesus  Christ  concerning  the  way  to  be  saved. 

Conscience,  in  conscientious  men,  when  it  has  been  roused 
to  declare  itself,  is  an  obstinate  thing.  The  conscience  of 
the  Puritans,  and  especially  of  the  Puritans  among  the  clergy, 
did  declare  itself  against  the  symbols  of  superstition ;  and 
so  numerous  were  those  who,  in  one  point  or  another,  refused 
to  conform,  and  so  eminent  were  they  for  fidelity  and  abil- 
ity in  their  ministry  and  for  learning,  that  for  a  while  their 
nonconformity  was  connived  at  by  the  ecclesiastical  author- 
ities, and  the  more  because  many  of  the  bishops  were  in  sym- 
pathy with  that  party.  But  in  a  few  years  after  the  acces- 
sion of  Elizabeth  (1565),  when  such  ecclesiastical  reforma- 
tion had  been  made  as  she  chose  to  tolerate,  a  royal  proela- 


TO  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES        [CH.  IV. 

raation  was  issued  demanding  a  strict  conformity.  In  the 
city  of  London,  thirty-seven  out  of  ninety-eight  beneficed 
clergymen  refused  to  make  the  promise  which  was  required 
of  them,  and  were  immediately  excluded  from  the  perform- 
ance of  their  ministry.^  A  company  of  Puritans  who  vent- 
ured to  meet  for  worship  in  their  own  way  (1567),  found 
that  there  were  penalties  for  the  nonconforming  laity  as  well 
as  for  nonconforming  clergymen.  Their  meeting  was  broken 
up,  and  a  large  number  of' them  were  imprisoned  to  study 
in  their  confinement  the  principles  of  church  order.^  In  all 
parts  of  England  there  were  similar  proceedings. 

Not  many  years  passed  before  the  conflict  entered  on  an- 
other stage  of  its  progress,  and  new  questions  were  opened 
between  the  Puritans  and  those  who  ruled  the  ecclesiastical 
establishment.  The  rigorous  enforcement  of  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity by  bishops  on  laity  as  well  as  clergy,  and  the  forci- 
ble suppression  of  the  private  assemblies  in  which  noncon- 
formists ventured  to  meet  for  social  worship,  had  an  effect 
which  a  little  knowledge  of  human  nature  might  have  antic- 
ipated. Puritans,  instead  of  being  convinced  by  such  argu- 
ments, began  to  consider  whether  the  system  of  ecclesias- 
tical government  which  was  so  conservative  of  superstitious 
vestments  and  ceremonies  ought  not  to  be  more  radically  re- 
formed. Thomas  Cartwright,  Lady  Margaret  Professor  of 
Divinity  in  the  University  of  Cambridge,  a  man  of  great  ce- 
lebrity for  learning  and  eloquence,  began  (1570)  to  discuss 
in  his  lectures  the  theory  of  church  government  as  given  in 
the  Scriptures;  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  say  in  what  par- 
ticulars the  actual  arrangements  for  the  government  of  the 
Church  of  England  were  widely  divergent  from  the  most  an- 
cient examples,  and  especially  from  the  authoritative  prece- 
dents and  principles  of  the  New  Testament.  Still  holding 
the  vicious  theory  that  an  independent  Christian  nation  is 
an  independent  Christian  church,  he  aimed  at  nothing  more 

'  Neal,  i.,  98,  99.  '  Ibid.,  p.  108,  109. 


A.D.  1560.]  THE    PUEITANS.  '71 

than  a  complete  reformation  by  the  government;  but  the 
system  which  he  would  have  the  queen  and  Parliament  es- 
tablish in  England  was  essentially  that  of  Geneva  and  of 
Scotland.  Thenceforward  the  Puritans,  as  a  party,  looked 
for  something  more  than  the  removal  of  a  few  obnoxious 
ceremonies,  and  the  privilege  of  officiating  in  a  black  gowp 
instead  of  a  white  surplice.  Thenceforward  they  would  be 
satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  an  entire  revision  and  recon- 
struction of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment.  Under  Cart- 
wright's  influence,  English  Puritanism  became,  essentially,  in 
its  ideas  and  aspirations,  Presbyterianism  like  that  of  Hol- 
land or  of  Scotland. 

To  describe  the  progress  of  that  controversy  in  the  Church 
of  England  would  be  aside  from  our  purpose.  It  w^as  a  long 
and  bitter  controversy.  On  one  side  there  was  power,  on 
the  other  side  there  was  the  obstinacy  of  conscience.  On 
one  side  was  the  queen,  with  the  splendor  of  her  court  and 
government,  with  her  inborn  love  of  pomp  as  well  as  of 
power,  with  her  imperious  will,  and  with  her  unbounded  pop- 
ularity as  a  princess  w^hose  right  to  the  throne,  and  even  the 
legitimacy  of  her  birth,  were  identified  with  Protestantism. 
On  the  other  side  was  the  people's  abhorrence  of  the  pope 
and  all  his  works — the  English  "  no-popery,"  which  had  been 
long  growing,  especially  among  the  middle-class  people,  and 
which  had  gained  both  extension  and  intensity  from  the  viv- 
idly remembered  atrocities  in  the  reign  of  Mary.  On  one 
side  were  some  good  men  and  learned,  conservative  by  nat- 
ure and  by  training,  who  thankfully  accepted  as  much  of  ref- 
ormation as  the  queen  would  give  them,  and  quietly  waited 
for  more,  with  many  other  men,  not  so  good  nor  so  learned, 
whose  feeling  was  that  the  queen  had  already  done  quite 
enough,  and  even  more  than  enough,  in  the  way  of  church 
reformation.  On  the  other  side  there  was  no  less  of  learn- 
ing, and  much  more  of  earnest  religious  feeling.  On  one 
side  was  the  fixed  purpose  of  Elizabeth  Tudor,  and  (after  a 
while)  of  the  prelates  who  depended  on  her  favor,  to  extin- 


72  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  IV. 

guish  the  noncoiitbrniing  and  reforming  party  by  depriva- 
tion and  silencing,  by  exorbitant  fines,  by  confinement  in 
loathsome  and  pestilential  prisons.  On  the  other  side  there 
was  the  invisible  yet  invincible  might  of  those  who  suffer 
for  conscience'  sake. 

.  On  both  sides  it  was  held  that  the  bishop  of  Rome  had 
no  rightful  authority  in  England.  On  both  sides  there  was 
a  fatal  error — fiital  to  liberty,  and  fatal  in  the  end  to  godli- 
ness— the  error  of  supposing  that  Christian  England,  being 
an  independent  nation,  was  therefore  an  independent  church 
— the  Church  of  England.  Both  held  a  fatal  error  in  assum- 
ing that  there  must  be  a  national  church,  one  and  indivisi- 
ble, and  that  the  reformation  of  the  church  could  be  wi'ought 
only  by  the  legislative  and  executive  sovereignty  of  the  na- 
tion. 

Something  better  than  Puritanism  was  necessary  to  liberty, 
and  to  the  restoration  of  simple  and  primitive  Christianity. 


A.D.  1560.]       KEFORMATION    WITHOUT   TARRYING.  73 


CHAPTER  V. 

REFORMATION   WITHOUT   TARRYING   TOR    ANY. 

What  Puritanism  demanded  was  an  ecclesiastical  reforma- 
tion to  be  made  by  the  national  authority.  Queen  Eliza- 
beth and  the  Parliament,  as  having  full  legislative  power  in 
England,  were  to  revise  the  established  forms  of  public  wor- 
ship and  purge  out  all  idolatrous  symbols  and  superstitious 
ceremonies.  The  laws  concerning  uniformity  Were  to  be 
changed,  not  in  the  interest  of  liberty  or  of  "  broad-church  " 
principles,  but  in  the  interest  of  primitive  purity  and  sim- 
plicity. The  entire  constitution  of  ecclesiastical  government, 
which  had  really  undergone  no  change  except  by  putting 
the  queen  into  the  pope's  place,  was  to  be  taken  down  and 
reconstructed.  The  reforming  party,  in  its  study  of  the 
Scriptures,  had  learned  that  archbishops  and  archdeacons 
were  not  known  to  the  apostles;  that  the  bishops  mentioned 
in  the  New  Testament  were  cIHcers  of  local  churches  only, 
and  not  rulers  over  many  churches  in  one  diocese ;  that  the 
so-called  ecclesiastical  courts,  with  their  fines  and  imprison- 
ments Q>?'0  salute  ani'marimi]  for  the  health  of  the  souls  of 
nonconformists  and  other  oifenders,  bore  no  resemblance  to 
the  arrangements  instituted  by  the  apostles  for  the  primitive 
churches.  Therefore"  the  Puritans  demanded  that  all  these 
things,  and  more  of  the  same  sort,  should  be  set  right  by  the 
national  authority,  inasmuch  as  the  English  nation  itself, 
baptized  and  Protestant,  was  the  Church  of  England.  No 
withdrawal  from  the  National  Church  was  to  be  thought  of, 
for  that  would  be  schism. 

When  Puritan  clergymen  officiated  without  the  surplice, 
or  baptized  without  the  sign  of  the  cross,  or  pronounced  the 
nuptial  benediction  on  bride  and  bridegroom  who  had  been 


74  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [cH.  V. 

married  without  a  ring,  or  administered  the  Lord's  Supper 
to  communicants  who  received  it  without  kneeling,  they 
did  not  consider  themselves  as  seceding  from  the  National 
Church,  but  only  as  disregarding,  in  deference  to  the  supreme 
authority  of  Christ,  certain  regulations  which,  being  made  in 
derogation  of  his  law,  were  without  force  in  his  church,  and 
ought  to  be  disregarded  at  all  hazards.  When,  after  being 
silenced  and  deprived  of  their  livings  for  their  nonconform- 
ity, they  met  with  their  friends  in  private  assemblies  for 
worship,  they  had  no  intention  of  organizing  another  church 
outside  of  the  Church  of  England,  but,  as  members  of  the 
National  Church,  they  insisted  on  obeying  God  rather  than 
men.  So  in  these  days,  the  Old-Catholic  clergy  and  laity  in 
Germany  do  not  regard  themselves  as  seceding  from  the 
Catholic,  nor  from  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  It  is  as 
Catholics  and  not  Protestants  that  they  reject  the  author- 
ity of  the  Vatican  Council,  and  maintain  that  the  sentences 
of  excommunication  hurled  against  them  by  a  not  infallible 
pope  are  invalid. 

But  under  oppression  men  sometimes  get  new  light.  As 
the  urging  of  conformity  to  an  obnoxious  ritual  led  Thomas 
Cartwright  and  others  to  investigate  the  theory  of  church 
government,  and  to  demand  a  warrant  from  the  Scriptures 
for  the  system  of  diocesan  episcopacy,  so,  under  the  dis- 
cipline of  impoverishing  fines  and  tedious  imprisonments, 
some  of  the  sufferers  began  to  doubt  whether  the  exception- 
al institution  called  the  Church  of  England — having  Eliza- 
beth Tudor  as  its  supreme  ruler  on  earth,  to  whom  every 
minister  of  God's  word  was  responsible  for  his  preaching 
and  for  all  his  spiritual  administrations — was  really  a  church 
of  Christ  in  any  legitimate  meaning  of  that  phrase.  The 
more  they  studied  the  New  Testament,  the  less  tliey  coifld 
find  bearing  a  resemblance  to  that  or  any  othe.r  National 
Church.  Questions  were  beginning  to  emerge  which  had 
not  yet  been  fairly  considered.  Did  the  apostles  institute 
any  national  church  ?     Did  Christ  intend  that  his  Catholic 


A.D.  1558-67.]       EEFORMATIOX    WITHOUT   TARRYING.  75 

Ohiirch  should  be  made  up  of  national  churches  mutually 
independent  ?  Was  it  his  plan  that  in  every  nation  the  Ca3- 
sar  or  other  sovereign,  if  baptized,  should  be  supreme  over 
the  church  also?  If  not,  what  was  his  intention  when  he 
sent  forth  his  disciples  to  convert  all  nations?  Noncon- 
formists were  holding  conventicles  in  private  rooms,  with 
the  doors  shut  for  fear  of  informers  and  persecutors ;  but  in 
what  capacity  or  character  were  they  thus  assembled  ? 
What  w^as  the  relation  of  such  assemblies,  and  what  the  re- 
lation of  the  queen's  National  Church  to  the  true  church  of 
Christ  in  England  ? 

Such  questionings  among  the  Puritans  gave  origin  to  an- 
other party  aiming  at  a  more  radical  reformation.  The  men 
of  the  new  party,  instead  of  remaining  in  the  Church  of  En- 
gland to  reform  it,  boldly  withdrew  themselves  from  that 
ecclesiastico-political  organization,  denouncing  that  and  all 
other  so-called  national  churches  as  institutions  unknown 
to  the  law  and  mind  of  Christ.  The  idea  of  separation,  in 
some  sort,  from  the  State  Church,  in  order  to  regain  the  sim- 
plicity of  Christian  institutions,  must  have  occurred  to  many 
minds,  before  any  attempt  was  made  to  propound  a  theory 
of  separation  and  to  embody  it  in  organized  churches.  Ev- 
ery act  of  nonconforming  worship  by  Lollards  before  the 
Reformation,  or  by  Protestants  in  that  bloody  restoration  of 
Romanism  which  filled  up  the  five  years  between  the  death 
of  Edward  YI.  and  the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  was,  practical- 
ly, though  not  in  theory,  an  assertion  of  religious  liberty. 
On  the  part  of  the  worshipers,  every  such  act  implied,  logi- 
cally if  not  consciously,  a  denial  of  any  right  in  the  civil 
power  to  prescribe  by  law  what  they  should  believe  and 
profess  concerning  God,  or  in  what  forms  they  should  w^or- 
ship.  But  ordinarily  the  protests  against  what  remained 
of  superstition  in  the  National  Church  were  not  protests 
against  the  theory  of  Nationalism ;  and  the  private  meet- 
ings of  Nonconformists  for  the  enjoyment  of  a  purer  worship 
were  nothing  more  than  a  practical  appeal  to  a  higher  law 


76  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CIIUECHES.       [CH.  V. 

with  which  the  lower  law  was  in  conflict,  but  which  ought 
to  be  recognized  and  enforced  by  the  legislative  authority 
of  England.  Even  when  congregations  were  organized,  as 
they  seem  to  have  been  in  some  instances,  to  meet  statedly 
for  worship  according  to  the  Scriptures,  using  the  Geneva 
Service-book  instead  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  it  does 
not  appear,  save  in  one  obscure  instance,  that  they  regarded 
themselves  as  any  thing  else  than  provisional  congregations 
of  oppressed  Christians  in  the  Church  of  England,  separating 
not  so  much  from  the  National  Chui-ch  as  from  its  disorders 
and  corruptions,  till  "the  reliques  of  Antichrist"  should  be 
swept  away  by  act  of  Parliament. 

Documents,  Avithout  date,  not  long  ago  discovered  in  the 
State  Paper  Oftice  of  the  English  government,  show  that, 
as  early  perhaps  as  the  tenth  year  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth 
•-^  (1567),  there  was  a  congregation  calling  itself  "  the  Privye 
Church  in  London,"  and  describing  itself  as  "a  poor  congre- 
gation whom  God  hath  separated  from  the  churches  of  En- 
gland and  from  the  mingled  and  false  worshiping  therein 
used."  It  was  a  church  professing  that  its  members,  "by 
the  strength  and  working  of  the  Almighty,  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  have  set  their  hands  and  hearts  to  the  pure,  unmin- 
gled,  and  sincere  worshiping  of  God  according  to  his  blessed 
and  glorious  word  . .  .  abolishing  and  abhorring  all  inventions 
and  traditions  of  men."  It  held  its  Lord's-day  and  its  week- 
day meetings.  "  So  as  God  giveth  strength,"  said  they,  "  we 
do  serve  the  Lord  "every  Sabbath-day  in  houses,  and  on  the 
fourth  day  in  the  week  we  come  together  weekly  to  use 
prayer  and  exercise  discipline  on  them  which  do  deserve  it, 
by  the  strength  and  sure  warrant  of  the  Lord's  good  word." 
It  was  a  persecuted  church.  "  This  secret  and  disguised  An- 
tichrist," said  they,  "  to  wit,  this  canon  law  with  the  branches 
and  maintainers" — in  other  words,  the  ecclesiastical  courts 
and  the  queen's  Hign  Commission — "have  by  long  imprison- 
ment pined  and  killed  the  Lord's  servants,  as  our  minister 
Richard  Fitz,  Thomas  Itowland,  deacon  .  .  .  and  besides  them 


A.D.  1567.]       REFORM ATION    WITHOUT   TARRYING. 


•d  great  multitude  .  .  .  wliose  good  cause  aud  faithful  testi- 
mony— though  we  should  cease  to  groan  and  cry  unto  our 
God  to  redress  such  wrongs  and  cruel  handlings  of  his  poor 
members — the  very  walls  of  the  prisons  about  this  city  (as 
the  Gate-house,  Bridewell,  the  Counters,  the  King's  Bench, 
the  Marshalsea,  the  White  Lion)  would  testify  God's  anger 
kindled  against  this  land  for  such  injustice."^ 

That  "secret  and  disguised  Antichrist"  complained  of  by 
the  sufferers  was  an  important  element  in  the  ecclesiastical 
government  of  England,  and  was  every  where  present  to 
suppress  both  separation  from  the  Established  Church  and 
nonconformity  within  the  church.     What  was  it  ? 

All  persons  within  the  realm  of  England  were  under  the 
government  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  were  therefore 
subject  to  the  judicial  authority  of  the  bishops  in  their  sev- 
eral dioceses.  That  authority  was  exercised  in  ecclesiastical 
or  "  spiritual "  courts.  Lowest  of  these  was  the  Archdea- 
coii's  Court,  which  was  held,  in  the  absence  of  the  archdea- 
con, by  a  judge  appointed  as  his  substitute,  and  called  his 
official.  Next  was  the  Consistory  Court  of  the  diocese,  held 
in  the  cathedral,  the  bishop's  chancellor  or  commissary  pre- 
siding as  judge.  The  Court  of  Arches,  \n  London,  was  that 
to  which  appeals  were  brought  from  the  consistory  courts 
in  the  several  dioceses  in  the  province  of  Canterbury,  there 
being  a  similar  court  for  appeals  in  the  province  of  York. 
The  judge  in  each  of  these  courts  was  supposed  to  represent 
the  "  spiritual "  authority  of  the  archbishop ;  and  the  final 
appeal  was  from  these  archiepiscopal  courts  to  the  supreme 
head  of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment,  namely,  to  a  Court 
of  Delegates,  or  commissioners,  appointed  by  the  sovereign  to 
represent  that  supremacy  over  the  Church  of  England  which 
had  been  wrested  from  the  pope.  Other  ecclesiastical  courts 
there  were — some  of  them  mere  shops  for  the  sale  of  "dis- 
pensations, licenses,  faculties,  and    other    remnants    of  the 

*  Waddington,  "  Congregational  History,"  p.  742-745. 


78  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEAV    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.      [CH.  V. 

papal  extortions" — but  no  description  of  them  is  necessary 
here. 

All  these  courts,  except  the  last,  were  from  ancient  times, 
and  were  spared  by  the  conservative  genius  of  the  English 
Reformation.  But  that  Reformation  itself  had  created  an- 
other tribunal  —  higher,  more  powerful,  and  more  terrible 
than  all  the  rest.  By  the  Act  of  Supremacy,  which  stands 
iirst  among  the  statutes  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  vv^hich 
finally  separated  the  ecclesiastical  establishment  of  England 
from  the  see  of  Rome,  the  queen  was  empowered  to  estab- 
lish what  was  afterward  known  as  the  "High  Commission 
for  Causes  Ecclesiastical."  Her  commissioners,  "  being  nat- 
ural-born subjects,"  but  otherwise  appointed  at  her  absolute 
discretion  as  "supreme  governor"  of  the  Church  of  England, 
were  authorized  "  to  use,  occupy,  and  exercise,  under  her,  all 
manner  of  jurisdiction,  privileges,  and  pre-eminences  touch- 
ing any  spiritual  or  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  within  the 
realms  of  England  and  Ireland."  By  that  authority,  they 
were  "  to  visit,  reform,  redress,  order,  correct,  and  amend  all 
errors,  heresies,  schisms,  abuses,  contempts,  offenses,  and  enor- 
mities whatsoever."  As  reconstituted,  with  some  unimpor- 
tant changes,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth 
(1584),  the  High  Commission  consisted  of  forty-four  commis- 
sioners. Twelve  of  these  were  bishops,  several  were  mem- 
bers of  the  Privy  Council,  others  were  clergymen  or  laymen 
of  lower  degree.  The  commissioners — or  an}^  three  of  them, 
one  being  a  bishop — Avere  empowered  to  make  inquiry  con- 
cerning "all  heretical  opinions,  seditious  books,  contempts, 
conspiracies,  false  rumors  or  talks,  slanderous  words  and  say- 
ings ;"  to  punish  all  persons  willfully  "  absent  from  church  or 
divine  service  established  by  law ;"  to  "  visit  and  reform  all 
errors,  heresies,  and  schisms,"  and  to  do  many  other  like 
things.  They  were  empowered  "  to  call  before  them  all  per- 
sons suspected"  of  ecclesiastical  offenses,  to  examine  them 
on  their  oaths,  though  (or  rather,  in  order  that)  in  their  an- 
swers they  might  criminate  themselves,  and  to  punish  them, 


A.D.  1574.]        KEFOKMATION    WITHOUT    TARRYING.  79 

if  refractory,  by  excommunication  (a  terrible  penalty  in  En- 
glish law),  by  fines  at  discretion,  and  by  unlimited  imprison- 
ment. All  "sheriffs, justices,  and  other  officers,"  were  to  be 
at  their  command  for  the  purpose  of  apprehending  or  caus- 
ing to  be  apprehended  any  persons  whom  they  might  require 
to  be  brought  before  them.  This  terrible  enginery  for  the 
enforcement  of  worship  and  of  religious  opinion  was  employ- 
ed not  in  London  only — the  chief  seat  of  the  High  Commis- 
sion— but  throughout  the  realm  wherever  one  of  the  twelve 
bishops  and  two  of  the  other  commissioners  might  choose  to 
hold  a  commission  court. ^  Proceeding,  like  other  ecclesias- 
tical courts,  against  offenders  and  suspected  persons  accord- 
ing to  the  methods  of  the  canon  and  civil  law,  the  High 
Commission  for  Causes  Ecclesiastical  might  well  be  called 
the  English  Inquisition. 

That  we  may  sec  clearly  in  what  school  the  more  ad- 
vanced and  uncompromising  Puritans  were  studying,  and 
what  means  were  employed  to  give  them  right  views  of 
church  polity,  we  must  look  at  some  instances  of  individual 
experience. 

The  old  town  of  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  in  the  county  of  Suf- 
folk, is  in  the  diocese  of  the  Bishop  of  Norwich.  Of  that  di- 
ocese, John  Parkhurst,  a  Puritan  Conformist,  had  been  bish- 
op from  the  time  of  the  restoration  of  Protestantism  by  Eliz- 
abeth. His  ideal  of  reformation  was  the  ecclesiastical  order 
which  he  saw  at  Zurich  when  he  found  refuge  there  from  the 
persecution  under  Mary.  Being  himself  a  diligent  preacher, 
he  had  been  much  more  intent  on  having  the  Gospel  intelli- 
gently preached  in  every  parish  than  on  persecuting  those 
preachers  who  were  more  scrupulous  than  he  about  the  cer- 
emonies and  the  vestments.  Consequently  the  diocese,  at 
his  death  (1574),  was  greatly  infested  with  Puritanism.^  His 
successor,  Edmund  Freke,  was   of  another  sort,  and  was  a 

'  The  queen's  patent  appointing  the  High  Commissioners,  as  tlie  court 
was  reconstituted,  Jc^\.  7,  1583-4,  may  be  read  in  Neal,  i.,  I  GO,  note. 
2  Neal,  i.,  92,  128,133,  134. 


80  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  V. 

bishop  after  the  queen's  own  heart.  From  the  beginning  of 
his  administration,  the  established  method  of  dealing  with 
scrupulous  consciences  was  perseveringly  employed.  Minis- 
ters of  the  Gospel,  beloved  and  honored  for  their  work's  sake 
in  their  parishes,  were  vexed  with  prosecutions  in  the  eccle- 
siastical courts,  were  suspended  from  their  ministry,  were 
sentenced  to  imprisonment  for  six  months,  for  a  year,  or  for 
life.  All  this,  instead  of  reconciling  the  Puritan  clergy  or 
people  to  the  system  imposed  upon  them,  made  them  more 
obstinate  in  their  scruples  and  more  daring  in  their  inquiries. 
At  Bury,  especially,  and  in  its  vicinity,  the  growing  dislike 
to  the  imprisonment  of  godly  men,  as  a  method  of  church 
discipline,  seems  to  have  prepared  some  advanced  minds  for 
the  revolutionary  idea  of  churches  mutually  independent, 
formed  by  the  voluntary  union  of  believing  souls,  and  gov- 
erning themselves  by  Christ's  authority  without  asking  leave 
of  prince  or  prelate. 

Among  the  earliest  who  received  and  attempted  to  realize 
that  conception  were  John  Copping,  Elias  Thacker,  and  Rob- 
ert Browne,  all  clergymen  of  the  Established  Church.  The 
first  of  these,  with  another  clergyman,  Tyler,  was  shut  up  in 
the  common  jail  of  Bury  for  nonconformity  (1576),  only  a 
few  months,  at  the  latest,  after  the  consecration  ofFreke  as 
Bishop  of  Norwich  ;  and  there  he  remained  seven  years,  while 
the  bishop  and  his  very  zealous  commissary,  aided  by  the 
High  Commission,  were  using  with  desperate  persistence  all 
the  oppressive  enginery  with  which  the  Act  of  Supremacy 
and  the  Act  of  Uniformity  had  armed  them  to  put  down 
Puritanism,  But  Puritanism  would  not  be  put  down.  When 
earnest  ministers  of  the  Gospel  were  suspended,  deprived  of 
their  livings,  silenced,  and  imprisoned  for  conscience'  sake, 
their  sufferings  and  remonstrances  (for  it  was  not  their  wont 
to  suffer  such  things  without  remonstrance)  stimulated  the 
growth  of  nonconformity  in  the  parishes.  Something  of  the 
English  spirit  of  resistance  to  aggi-ession,  and  of  the  old-time 
conflict  between  the  common  law  and  the  law  administered 


A. D.  1581.]       EEFOEilATIOX  WITHOUT  TARRYING.  81 

by  ecclesiastical  functionaries,  entered  into  the  growing  ex- 
citement. The  bishop  found  himself  in  conflict  with  the  sec- 
ular authorities  of  Bury,  and  knowing  that  his  policy  was 
the  queen's  policy,  he  sent  forward  charges  (1581)  to  the 
Lord  Treasurer  Burleigh  against  the  justices  who  had  used 
their  influence,  ofiicial  and  personal,  in  favor  of  the  noncon- 
forming clergy  and  against  his  proceedings.  Four  of  those 
magistrates,  for  themselves  and  their  associates,  replied  to 
the  bishop's  complaint.  Professing  their  own  loyalty,  and 
aflirming  that  they  "  countenanced  none  but  such  as  are  lov- 
ers of  God's  true  religion  and  dutiful  subjects  to  her  maj- 
esty," they  charged  the  bishop  with  sinister  intentions  in 
not  removing  Copping  and  Tyler  from  the  common  jail  in 
Bury,  where  they  had  been  so  many  years  imprisoned,  to  his 
own  prison  in  Norwich ;  and  they  boldly  maintained  that 
he,  by  his  pertinacious  attempts  to  introduce  into  the  par- 
ishes of  his  diocese  clergymen  too  ignorant  to  preach,  had 
shown  himself  a  patron  of  ignorance  in  the  church  and  an 
enemy  to  the  preaching  of  the  Word  of  God.  The  bishop's 
complaint  against  the  justices  appears  to  have  been  dismiss- 
ed, but  there  was  no  relief  for  the  prisoners,  and  —  though 
Lord  Burleigh  himself  interceded  by  writing  to  the  bishop 
— no  less  rigor  in  the  treatment  of  nonconforming  clergy- 
men. 

Robert  Browne  was  a  young  man  of  impetuous  and  reck- 
less zeal,  and  eloquent  in  popular  discourse,  but  of  an  im- 
perious, passionate,  and  unstable  disposition.  He  w^as  an 
active  and  daring  agitator,  not  only  in  that  diocese,  but  in 
other  parts  of  England.  More  than  once  he  had  been  call- 
ed to  account  for  ecclesiastical  irregularities ;  and  once,  at 
least,  he  had  been  imprisoned  at  Norwich  by  the  High 
Commission  Court.  But  being  a  kinsman  of  the  queen's 
most  trusted  and  most  powerful  counselor.  Lord  Burleigh, 
he  had  a  measure  of  impunity  from  which  he  seems  to  have 
taken  courage.  Not  long  after  his  release,  in  compliance 
with  Lord  Burleigh's  request  to  the  bishop,  from  the  prison 

F 


82  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  V. 

at  Norwich,  he  was  constrained  to  flee  from  England,  as 
many  liad  done  already,  and  at  Middleburg,  in  the  Dutch 
republic,  he  gathered  a  church  of  English  exiles,  chiefly 
friends  of  his  who  had  accompanied  him  (1582).  At  that 
place  he  printed  two  books  or  pamphlets,  setting  forth  dis- 
tinctly the  new  idea  of  church  reformation,  which  was  noth- 
ing else  than  to  restore  the  purely  voluntary  Christianity  of 
the  New  Testament.  Such  books  could  not  have  been  print- 
ed in  England  but  by  stealth  ;  yet  they  were  printed  for  cir- 
culation and  eflect  in  England,  as  Tyndale's  translation  of 
the  New  Testament  had  been  more  than  fifty  years  before 
that  time. 

The  fli'st  of  those  books  was  entitled  "A  Book  which 
showeth  the  Life  and  Manners  of  all  true  Christians,  and 
how  unlike  they  are  unto  Turks  and  Papists  and  Heathen 
Folk.  Also,  the  Points  and  Parts  of  all  Divinity — that  is,  of 
the  Revealed  Will  and  Word  of  God — are  declared  by  their 
several  Definitions  and  Divisions."  Some  of  the  statements 
and  definitions  in  that  book  are  worthy  to  be  remembered, 
as  indicating  the  depth  and  breadth  of  the  new^  reformation 
which  was  contemplated,  and  the  simplicity  of  its  idea. 

"The  New  Testament,"  said  this  radical  reformer,"  which 
is  called  the  Gospel,  or  glad  tidings,  is  a  joyful  and  plain  de- 
claring and  teaching,  by  a  due  message,  of  the  remedy  of 
our  miseries. through  Christ  our  Redeemer,  who  is  come  in 
the  flesh,  a  Saviour  unto  those  which  worthily  receive  this 
message,  and  hath  fulfilled  the  old  ceremonies."  Christian- 
ity, in  this  rudimental  definition  of  it,  is  a  simple  thing— not 
a  hierarchy,  not  a  ritual,  not  a  system  of  dogmas — but  the 
intelligible  story  of  a  remedy  for  human  miseries  through 
Christ  our  Redeemer,  who  by  his  coming  has  fulfilled,  and 
by  fulfilling  has  abolished,  the  old  ritual  prophetic  of  his  re- 
deeming work;  and  "all  true  Christians"  are  all  those  who 
worthily  receive  the  story. 

But  is  there,  then,  no  church?  Is  Christianity  nothing 
more  than  a  story  told  and  received  ?    Is  the  church  noth- 


A.D.  1582.]         REFORMATION    WITHOUT   TARRYING.  83 

ing  more  than  the  unorganized  and  invisible  unity  of  those 
who  receive  the  Gospel?  Yes.  "The  church  planted  or 
gathered  [the  organized  institution]  is  a  company  or  number 
of  Christians  or  believers,  which,  by  a  willing  covenant  made 
with  their  God,  are  under  the  government  of  God  and  Christ, 
and  keep  his  laws  in  one  holy  communion,  because  Christ 
hath  redeemed  them  unto  holiness  and  happiness  forever, 
from  which  they  were  fallen  by  the  sin  of  Adam."  "The 
church  government  is  the  Lordship  of  Christ  in  the  com- 
munion of  his  oflSces ;  whereby  his  people  obey  his  will,  and 
have  mutual  use  of  their  graces  and  callings,  to  further  their 
godliness  and  welfare." 

If  the  church  is  no  more  than  this — if  the  government  of 
the  church  is  only  the  free  obedience  of  Christ's  people  to 
his  will  in  mutual  helpfulness,  in  order  to  their  godliness  and 
welfare — where  and  what  is  Christ's  kingdom  ?  How  can  he 
have  a  kingdom  without  ecclesiastical  courts  and  canon  law? 
"  The  kingdom  of  Christ,"  in  the  programme  of  that  new 
reformation,  "  is  his  office  of  government,  whereby  he  useth 
the  obedience  of  his  people  to  keep  his  laws  and  command- 
ments to  their  salvation  and  welfare."  "The  kingdom  of 
Antichrist  is  his  government  confirmed  by  the  civil  magis- 
trate, whereby  he  abuseth  the  obedience  of  the  people  to 
keep  his  evil  laws  and  customs  to  their  own  damnation." 
The  pope,  then,  may  be  dethroned  ;  but  if  the  civil  magistrate 
come  into  his  place  to  confirm  the  "evil  laws  and  customs" 
which  the  apostasy  brought  in,  the  kingdom  of  Antichrist 
remains. 

What,  then,  of  excommunication  ?  Are  there  to  be  neither 
consistory  courts  nor  presbyterial  judicatures  in  the  king- 
dom of  Christ  ?  Are  there  to  be  no  "  spiritual "  penalties  of 
fine  and  imprisonment  inflicted  in  the  name  of  the  church — 
no  sentence  of  excommunication  with  consequent  civil  dis- 
abilities ?  What  is  to  be  substituted  for  all  this  ?  Simply 
the  voluntary  action  of  the  church  freely  separating  itself 
from  ofienders  and  the  offenders  from  itself.     "Separation 


84  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES         [CH.  V. 

of  the  open,  willful,  or  grievous  offenders  is  a  dutifulness  of 
the  church  in  withholding  from  them  the  Christian  com- 
munion and  fellowship,  by  pronouncing  and  showing  the 
covenant  of  Christian  communion  to  be  broken  by  their 
grievous  wickedness,  and  that  with  mourning,  fasting,  and 
prayer  for  them,  and  denouncing  God's  judgment  against 
them." 

Is  the  church,  then,  an  ungoverned  and  unorganized  as- 
sembly ?  No ;  it  is  served  and  guided  by  officers  of  its  own 
choice,  each  with  appropriate  and  definite  duties.  "  A  pastor 
is  a  person  having  office  and  message  of  God,  for  exhorting 
and  moving  especially,  and  guiding  accordingly;  for  the 
which  he  is  tried  to  be  meet,  and  thereto  is  duly  chosen  by 
the  church  which  calleth  him,  or  received  by  obedience 
where  he  planteth  the  church."  "A  teacher  of  doctrine  is  a 
person  having  office  and  message  of  God  for  teaching  espe- 
cially, and  guiding  accordingly,  with  less  gift  to  exhort  and 
apply;  for  the  which  he  is  tried  to  be  meet,  and  thereto  is 
duly  chosen  by  the  church  which  calleth  him,  or  received  by 
obedience  where  he  planteth  the  church."  "An  elder,  or 
more  forward  in  gift,  is  a  person  having  office  and  message 
of  God  for  oversight  and  counsel,  and  redressing  things 
amiss ;"  and  he,  too,  is  in  like  manner  tried  and  chosen  by 
the  church.  "  The  reliever  is  a  person  having  office  of  God, 
to  provide,  gather,  and  bestow  the  gifts  and  liberality  of  the 
church  as  there  is  need;  to  the  which  office  he  is  tried  and 
received  as  meet."  "The  icidoio  is  a  person  having  office 
of  God  to  pray  for  the  church,  and  to  visit  and  minister  to 
those  which  are  afflicted  and  distressed  in  the  church ;  for 
the  which  she  is  tried  and  received  as  meet." 

But  what  service  does  this  Utopian  church  render  to  the 
queen?  What  obedience  does  it  pay  to  those  who  rule  by 
her  commission  and  under  her  supreme  authority  ?  The  an- 
swer is  not  wanting.  "  Civil  magistrates  are  persons  au- 
thorized of  God,  and  received  by  the  consent  or  choice  of  the 
people,  whether  officers  or  subjects,  or  by  birth  and  succes- 


A.D.  1582.]         REFOEMATIOX   WITHOUT   TARRYING.  85 

sion  also,  to  make  and  execute  laws  by  public  agreement,  to 
rule  the  commonwealth  in  all  outward  justice,  and  to  main- 
tain the  right  welfare  and  honor  thereof,  with  outward  power, 
bodily  punishments,  and  civil  forcing  of  men."  This  was 
written,  or  at  least  printed,  under  the  protection  of  a  re- 
public; the  reference  to  "the  consent  or  choice  of  the  peo- 
ple" was  therefore  natural.  But  the  book  was  to  have  its 
circulation  and  eifect  in  England,  and  therefore  it  recognized 
"birth  and  succession  also"  as  a  method  in  which  "persons" 
might  be  "  authorized  of  God  and  received  "  to  rule  the  com- 
monwealth, and  to  maintain  its  rights,  welfare,  and  honor  in 
peace  or  war,  not  bearing  the  sword  in  vaiu.^ 

Of  the  other  book  j^rinted  under  Browne's  direction  at  Mid- 
dleburg  and  sent  into  England,  we  know  little  more  than  its 
title,  which  was  strikingly  significant  of  the  contents.  It  an- 
nounced itself  as  a  treatise  "  Of  Reformation  without  tarry- 
ing for  any ;  and  of  the  wickedness  of  those  preachers  who 
will  not  reform  themselves  and  their  charge,  because  they 
will  tarry  till  the  magistrate  command  and  compel  them." 
The  very  title  was  a  declaration  of  war  against  Puritanism, 
w^aiting  and  agitating  for  Reformation  of  the  National 
Church  by  act  of  Parliament.  It  implied  that  those  who 
would  follow  Christ  in  the  regeneration  of  England  must 
begin  by  withdrawing  from  the  queen's  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishment, and  gathering  believers  into  voluntary  churches 
just  as  the  first  believers  were  gathered  into  churches  by 
the  apostles  and  their  helpers. 

These  tw^o  books,  printed  out  of  the  reach  of  English  laws 
and  English  officers,  were  sent  into  England ;  for  in  Holland 
they  could  be  read  only  by  a  few  exiles.  At  that  time  Cop- 
ping had  been  five  years  a  prisoner  "for  his  disobedience 
to  the  ecclesiastical  laws  of  the  realm,  whereunto  he  would 
not  yet  conform  himself,  although  he  had  been  sundry  times 
exhorted  thereto  by  many  godly  and  learned  preachers  re- 

^  Hanbuiy,  "Historical  Memorials,"  i.,  19-22. 


86  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  V. 

pairing  publicly  to  him  to  bring  him  to  conformity."     A 
child  had  been  born  to  him  there  in  Bury,  and  had  remained 
month  after  month  unbaptized,  because  he  had  insisted  that 
no  mere  priest — none  but  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel — should 
baptize  a  child  of  his,  and  that  no  godfathers  and  godmoth- 
ers should  have  part  in  the  baptism.     It  is  also  reported  con- 
cerning him  that  he  held  many  fantastical  opinions,  where- 
by he  did  very  much  hurt  there  in  Bury,"  so  that  "  learned 
preachers,"  as  well  as  Puritan  magistrates,  "  wished  him  to 
be  removed  out  of  the  prison  for  preventing  the  doing  of 
more  hurt."    On  the  morning  of  the  feast  of  All  Saints,  when 
the  chaplain,  as  required  by  the  regulations,  had  "  said  morn- 
ing prayer  to  the  prisoners,"  Copping,  embracing  so  good 
an  opportunity  for  disputation,  called  him  a  "dumb  dog," 
and  said  that  the  keeping  of  saints'  days  was  idolatry.     He 
even  said  something  to  the  effect  that  a  coronation  oath  to 
set  forth  God's  glory  directly  in  conformity  with  the  Script- 
ures, if  taken  and  not  performed,  was  perjury;  and  if  he  did 
not  infer,  others  made  the  inference  for  him,  that  the  queen 
was  therefore  perjured.     The  infectiousness  of  his  "fantas- 
tical opinions"  is  implied  in  the  anxiety  of  Puritan  preach- 
ers  and  magistrates  for  his  removal,  and  the   removal  of 
those  who  for  the  same  cause  were  his  fellow-prisoners,  to 
the  ecclesiastical  jail  at  Norwich ;  and  it  may  have  been  the 
reason  why  the  bishop  would  not  consent  to  the  desired  re- 
moval.     Norwich  itself  was  full  of  Puritanism,  and  there, 
no  less  than  at  Bury,  imprisoned  Nonconformists,  if  Copping 
were  among  them,  might  take  the  infection  of  his  opinions 
as  naturally  as  they  might  take  the  jail  fever. 

When  those  ominous  books  made  their  appearance  in  En- 
gland, the  diocese  of  Norwich,  especially  the  county  of  Suf- 
folk, had  already  become  a  field  prepared  for  the  reception 
of  such  seed  ;  and  from  the  jail  at  Bury  the  seed  seems  to 
have  been  dispersed.  Elias  Thacker,  of  whom  little  else  is 
known  than  what  is  now  to  be  related,  was  a  fellow-prisoner 
with  Copping,  and  took  part  with  him  and  others  in  the  ar- 


A.D.  1583.]  REFORMATION    WITHOUT   TARRYING.  87 

rangements  for  putting  the  books  into  circulation.  It  is  not 
unreasonable  to  suppose — though  positive  evidence  is  want- 
ing—  that  the  relation  of  these  men,  and  of  others  whose 
names  have  not  come  down  to  us,  to  Browne's  attempt,  was 
more  than  that  of  accessories  after  the  fact ;  in  other  words, 
that  the  books  were  written  and  printed  in  conformity  with 
a  plan  agreed  upon  before  Browne's  departure  from  England, 
and  were  the  result  of  consultation  among  thoughtful  and 
resolute  men  who  had  already  accepted  the  theory  of  separa- 
tion. Be  that  as  it  may,^the  agitation  thus  inaugurated  was 
reofarded  as  a  hioh  crime  agjainst  the  o'overnment ;  and  for 
their  co-operation  in  "spreading  certain  books  seditiously 
penned  by  Robert  Browne  against  the  Book  of  Common  Pray- 
er," Copping  and  Thacker,  having  been  thus  far  in  the  hands 
of  the  bishop  and  the  High  Commission,  were  transferred  to 
the  secular  power,  and  tried  under  a  charge  of  sedition  (1583, 
June).  The  alleged  sedition  was  that, in  the  books  distributed 
by  them,  the  queen's  supremacy  over  the  church  was  denied. 
That  they  incited  the  queen's  subjects  to  any  rebellion  or  tu- 
mult, or  to  any  breach  of  the  peace  ;  that  they  denied  in 
anywise  her  civil  supremacy  over  all  persons  and  all  estates 
within  the  realm — was  not  pretended.  But  only  for  holding 
the  church  polity  of  the  New  Testament,  namely,  the  in- 
alienable right  and  duty  of  Christian  men  to  associate,  volun- 
tarily, for  worship  and  communion,  in  separate  and  self-gov- 
erned churches  —  only  for  putting  into  circulation  certain 
tracts  for  the  times,  in  which  that  theory  was  set  forth  and 
vindicated — those  two  clergymen  were  found  guilty  of  sedi- 
tion, under  the  rulino:  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  Eng^land. 
One  of  the  archbishop's  chaplains,  as  in  duty  bound,  la- 
bored with  his  two  brethren  thus  condemned  to  die;  but  he 
could  not  bring  them  to  the  desired  repentance.  Nor  is  it 
likely  that  the  success  of  his  spiritual  counsel  would  have 
been  greater  had  the  time  been  extended.  It  was  only  a 
*'  short  shrift."  Thacker  on  the  4th  of  June,  and  Copping  on 
the  6th,  died,  not  indeed  as  heretics,  amid  "  the  glories  of 


88      GENESIS  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CHUECHES.   [CH.  Y. 

the  burning  stake,"  like  the  martyrs  in  Queen  Mary's  reign, 
but  only  as  felons,  their  sole  felony  being  that  they  held  and 
published  what  is  now  called  Congregationalism.  In  En- 
gland, under  Queen  Elizabeth,  Congregationalism  was  pun- 
ished as  sedition.^ 

The  queen  and  her  counselors  judged  rightly  that  the 
principles  of  the  two  books  were  dangerous  to  the  notion  of 
the  royal  supremacy  in  matters  of  religion,  and  to  the  sys- 
tem built  upon  that  notion  ;  for,  instead  of  proposing  to 
amend  the  system  here  and  there,  in  the  Puritan  fashion,  and 
to  bring  the  ecclesiastical  establishment  of  the  realm  into  a 
better  shape,  those  new  principles  struck  at  the  root  of  the 
tree.  If  such  principles  were  to  prevail — if  a  church  were 
nothing  else  than  a  society  of  Christian  disciples,  separated 
from  the  world,  and  voluntarily  agreeing  to  govern  them- 
selves by  the  law  of  Christ  as  given  in  the  Holy  Scriptures 
— if  churches  were  to  be  instituted  at  Bury  St.  Edmund's,  at 
Norwich,  and  at  London,  by  the  same  right  by  which  church- 
es were  first  instituted  at  Antioch,  at  Corinth,  and  at  Rome — 
if  England,  with  its  hierarchy,  were  not  a  church  at  all,  but 
only  a  kingdom  in  which  Elizabeth  was  queen — the  entire  fab- 
ric of  the  National  Church  was  in  peril.  For  that  reason  it 
was  that  John  Copping  and  Elias  Thacker  were  so  sternly  dealt 
with.  The  purpose  was  to  make  an  example  which  should 
deter  all  men  from  any  thought  of  independent  churches. 

Robert  Browne  was  not  a  martyr.  He  was  not  of  the  stuft* 
that  martyrs  are  made  of  The  passion  that  impelled  him 
was  the  love  of  agitation.  When  that  passion  had  partly 
spent  itself,  he  did  what  mere  agitators  often  do  as  they 
grow  older — he  turned  conservative,  and  betrayed  the  cause 
for  which  he  had  contended.     After  about  two  years  in  Hol- 

^  Strype,  "  Annals  of  the  Reformation,"  iii.,  pt.  i.,  15-17, 186,  187;  Brad- 
ford, in  Young's  "Chroniclesof  the  Pilgrims,  "p.  427;  Neal,i.,  149-154;  Hop- 
kins, "Puritans  and  Queen  Elizabeth,"  ii.,  280-320.  Neal  calls  these  two  mar- 
tyrs "ministers  of  the  Brownist  persuasion ;"  but  neither  Strype  nor  Bradford 
speaks  of  them  as  ministers. 


A.D.  1584-1630.]       REFOKMATION   WITHOUT   TARRYING.  89 

land,  he  passed  over  into  Scotland  (1584),  his  flock  at  Middle- 
burg  having  been  broken  up,  as  might  have  been  expected  in 
view  of  his  imperious  and  impulsive  temper.  A  pastor  of  such 
a  temper  may  be  a  much  better  man  than  Browne  was,  and 
yet  bring  ruin  upon  a  much  stronger  church  than  that  little 
society  of  English  exiles  could  have  been.  In  Scotland,  the 
agitator  was  as  obnoxious  to  the  Presbyterian  establishment 
as  he  had  been  to  Bishop  Freke  in  his  native  country.  The 
next  year  (1585)  we  find  him  in  England  again,  presuming  on 
the  comparative  immunity  which  he  had  by  virtue  of  his  high 
connection,  and  soon  renewing  his  work  of  agitation.  Five 
years  after  the  martyrdom  of  Copping  and  Thacker  he  w  as 
vanquished  by  the  civil  disabilities  consequent  on  a  sentence 
of  excommunication  which  had  been  pronounced  against  him 
in  a  bishop's  court  for  the  contempt  of  not  appearing  in  an- 
swer to  a  citation.  Thereupon  he  "  submitted  himself  to 
the  order  and  government  established"  in  the  Church  of  En- 
gland, and  was  restored  to  good  standing,  not  only  in  the 
church,  but  in  its  priesthood.  By  the  influence  of  his  friends 
at  court  he  obtained  "means  and  help  for  some  ecclesiastic- 
al preferment,"  and  in  a  short  time  after  his  submission  he 
received  a  benefice  (1591).  This  does  not  imply  that  he  re- 
canted his  opinions,  or  made  any  profession  of  repentance  for 
what  he  had  done — it  was  enough  that  he  submitted.  He  had 
not  even  the  desperate  self-respect  which  prompted  Judas  to 
hang  himself;  but,  like  Benedict  Arnold,  he  took  care  not  to 
lose  the  poor  reward  of  his  baseness.  He  was  the  rector  of 
a  parish,  and  received  his  tithes ;  but  never  preached.  By 
his  idle  and  dissolute  life  he  disgraced  his  ministry ;  but,  in- 
asmuch as  he  could  not  be  charged  with  nonconformity,  he 
retained  his  living.  The  quarrelsome  temper  which  had  brok- 
en up  his  little  church  at  Middleburg  vented  itself  upon  his 
wife  in  acts  of  cruelty,  and  they  could  not  live  together.  In 
a  quarrel  with  the  constable  of  the  parish,  he  took  the  re- 
sponsibility of  beating  that  ofiicer.  Arraigned  before  a  jus- 
tice for  the  unclerical  ofiense,  he  used  such  violence  of  speech 


90  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  V. 

that  he  was  sent  to  prison  for  contempt,  and  there  he  died  at 
the  age  of  eighty,  a  miserable  and  despised  old  man,  but  a 
beneficed  minister  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  in  regular 
standing.^  He  died  in  the  year  1630,  when  the  Separation 
which  he  deserted,  and  for  which  Thacker  and  Copping  suf- 
fered an  ignominious  death,  had  founded  a  Christian  com- 
monwealth in  New  England.  They  died  in  their  early  man- 
hood ;  he  lived  on,  and  "  the  days  of  his  years,  by  reason  of 
strength,  were  fourscore  years ;"  yet  how  much  better  and 
more  blessed  was  it  to  die  as  they  died,  than  to  live  as  he 
lived ! 


Fuller,  "Church  History,"  v.,  63-70. 


A.D.  1593.]      SEPARATISM   BEFORE    THE    HIGH    COMMISSION.       91 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SEPARATISM   BEFORE   THE    HIGH   COMMISSIONERS. 

It  was  not  so  easy  as  Elizabeth  and  her  prelates  had  sup- 
posed to  suppress  the  new  theory  of  freedom  in  the  church. 
The  idea  of  "Reformation  without  tarrying  for  any,"  as  it 
survived  the  hanging  of  its  first  confessors,  survived  also  the 
treachery  of  their  unworthy  associate.  Only  ten  years  after 
that  hanging  there  was  a  bill  in  Parliament  (1593)  for  a  new 
law  against  "the  Brownists,"  so  called  though  Browne  was  no 
longer  one  of  them ;  for  some  new  securities  were  thought 
necessary  against  a  party  that  was  growing  formidable.  On 
that  occasion.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  arguing  against  the  bill 
— not  that  he  cared  for  the  Brownists,  whom  he  pronounced 
"  worthy  to  be  rooted  out  of  the  commonwealth,"  but  be- 
cause he  valued  those  principles  of  English  liberty  which  the 
bill  proposed  to  sacrifice — made  a  significant  statement :  "  I 
am  afraid,"  said  he, "there  are  near  twenty  thousand  of  them 
in  England."  Twenty  thousand  of  them  in  England,  only 
ten  years  after  that  hanging  at  Bury  St.  Edmund's  ! 

Already  the  Separation  was  beginning  to  be  spoken  of 
among  the  people  by  another  name  than  Browne's.  Henry 
Barrowe,  "a  gentleman  of  a  good  house"  in  Norfolk,  and  a 
graduate  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  became,  after  leav- 
ing the  university,  a  member  of  the  legal  profession  in  Lon- 
don, and  "was  sometime  a  frequenter  of  the  court"  of 
Queen  Elizabeth.  Governor  Bradford  has  given  us  that  ac- 
count of  him  which  was  current  fifty  years  later  among  the 
Separatist  founders  of  Plymouth,  some  of  whom  had  been 
"  well  acquainted  with  those  that  knew  him  familiarly  both 
before  and  after  his  conversion,"  and  one  of  whom  had  re- 
ceived information  from  a  servant  of  his  who  "  tended  upon 


92  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  VI. 

him  both  before  and  sometime  after"  the  great  change  in 
his  life. 

"He  was  a  gentleman  of  good  worth,  and  a  flourishing 
courtier  in  his  time."  "  Walking  in  London  one  Lord's  day 
with  one  of  his  companions,  he  heard  a  preacher  at  his  ser- 
mon, very  loud,  as  they  passed  by  the  church.  *Let  us  go  in,' 
said  he, '  and  hear  what  this  man  saith  that  is  thus  earnest.' 
Moved  by  the  sudden  impulse,  in  he  went  and  sat  down. 
And  the  minister  was  vehement  in  reproving  sin,  and  sharp- 
ly applied  the  judgments  of  God  against  the  same  ;  and,  it 
should  seem,  touched  him  to  the  quick  in  such  things  as  he 
was  guilty  of,  so  as  God  set  it  home  to  his  soul,  and  began 
to  work  for  his  repentance  and  conviction  thereby.  For  he 
was  so  stricken  as  he  could  not  be  quiet,  until  by  conference 
with  godly  men,  and  further  hearing  of  the  word,  with  dili- 
gent reading  and  meditation,  God  brought  peace  to  his  soul 
and  conscience  after  much  humiliation  of  heart  and  reforma- 
tion of  life."  In  this  process  of  reformation  "  he  left  the 
court  and  retired  himself  to  a  private  life,  sometime  in  the 
country  and  sometime  in  the  city,  giving  himself  to  study 
and  reading  of  the  Scriptures  and  other  good  works  very  dil- 
igently ;  and  being  missed  at  court  by  his  consorts  and  ac- 
quaintance, it  was  quickly  bruited  abroad  that  Barrowe  was 
turned  Puritan."^  Another  account  of  his  conversion,  given 
by  one  who  may  have  known  him  as  a  young  man  at  court, 
is  that  he  "  made  a  leap  from  a  vain  and  dissolute  youth  to 
a  preciseness  in  the  highest  degree,  the  strangeness  of  which 
alteration  made  him  very  much  spoken  of"  ^ 

Long  afterward,  the  life  which  he  lived  in  his  youth  was 
unkindly  referred  to  as  a  disgrace  to  his  memory.  Enemies 
of  the  Separation  reported  that  he  "  was  a  great  gamester 
and  a  dicer  when  he  lived  in  court ;  and,  getting  much  in 
play,  would  boast  of  loose  spending  it" — as  if  there  were  no 

1  Bradford's  "Dialogue,"  in  "  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,"  p.  433,  434. 

2  Lord  Bacon's  Works  (Philadelphia,  1842),  ii.,  249. 


A.D.  1583.]      SEPARATISM   BEFORE   THE    HIGH    COMMISSION.       93 

such  thing  as  the  true  conversion  of  a  sinner,  or  as  if  the 
conversion  of  Augustine  from  a  wayward  and  vicious  life  to 
eminence  among  the  saints  were  less  marvelous  or  more  mi- 
raculous than  the  conversion  of  that  young  man  in  the  court 
of  Queen  Elizabeth.  "  That  he  was  tainted  with  vices  at 
the  court  before  his  conversion  is  not  very  strange,"  said 
Bradford  ;  "  and  if  he  had  lived  and  died  in  that  condition,  it 
is  like  he  might  have  gone  out  of  the  world  without  any  pub- 
lic brand  on  his  name,  and  have  passed  for  a  tolerable  Chris- 
tian and  member  of  the  church."  From  the  "  vain  and  dis- 
solute" life  of  a  courtier,  he  was  strangely  converted  to  a 
life  of  serious  godliness.  The  fact  was  notorious  at  the  time, 
as  we  know  from  indubitable  testimony. 

"Barrowe  is  turned  Puritan"  was  the  story  among  the 
lawyers  at  Gray's  Inn,  and  among  gay  courtiers.  Any  man 
who  seemed  in  earnest  to  do  the  will  of  God,  taking  the  Bi- 
ble for  his  guide,  was  in  those  days  called  a  Puritan.  But, 
as  to  the  question  of  church  reformation,  this  young  man,  no 
longer  "  vain  and  dissolute,"  did  not  rest  in  mere  Puritanism. 
His  inquiries  soon  brought  him  to  the  more  advanced  posi- 
tion of  separation  from  all  national  churches.  His  connec- 
tions and  the  notoriety  of  his  conversion,  as  well  as  his  tal- 
ents and  his  zeal,  made  him  conspicuous  among  the  Sepa- 
ratists ;  and  soon  the  name  "  Barrowist "  began  to  be  used 
instead  of  "Brownist." 

The  name  of  Henry  Barrowe  is  inseparably  associated  in 
history  with  that  of  his  friend  and  fellow-sufferer,  John  Green- 
w^ood.  Of  Greenwood  we  know  that  he  had  taken  a  degree 
at  Cambridge,  had  received  ordination  from  episcopal  hands, 
had  served  as  chaplain  in  the  family  of  a  Puritan  nobleman 
(Lord  Rich,  of  Rochford,  in  Essex),  but  had  renounced  all 
connection  with  the  so-called  Church  of  England,  and,  in  co- 
operation with  Barrowe,  had  made  himself  obnoxious  to  the 
ruling  powers  by  his  conspicuous  activity  among  the  Sepa- 
ratists. He  was  a  young  man — probably  not  thirty  years  of 
age  —  a  husband,  and  the  father  of  a  young  son,  when  we 


94  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  VI. 

find  him  a  prisoner  in  the  Clink  prison  in  Southwark.  The 
date  of  his  arrest  and  confinement  does  not  appear. 

On  a  Lord's  day  in  November  (Nov.  19, 1586),  six  years  and 
a  half  after  Copping  and  Thacker  had  been  put  to  death  for 
maintaining  that  Christians  in  England  ought  to  unite  in  sepa- 
rate and  voluntary  churches,  according  to  the  New  Testament, 
Henry  Barrowe,  having  heard  that  his  friend  Greenwood  was 
in  prison,  made  haste  to  visit  him.  The  keeper  of  the  prison 
took  the  opportunity  of  detaining  Barrowe  without  a  war- 
rant, and  hurried  to  Archbishop  Whitgift,  at  Lambeth,  with 
the  news  of  the  capture.  On  his  return  with  two  of  the 
archbishop's  ofiicers,  the  captive  was  conveyed  by  water  to 
the  Lambeth  Palace,  and  underwent  an  examination  before 
Whitgift  and  two  others  of  the  High  Commission ;  for  the 
business,  being  ecclesiastical,  was  not  thought  inappropriate 
to  the  Lord's  day. 

The  examination  was  far  from  satisfactory  to  the  examin- 
ers, as  will  appear  from  some  passages  which  show  striking- 
ly what  the  man  was,  and  what  were  his  principles. 

At  the  beginning,  Barrowe  found  opportunity  to  allege 
that  his  imprisonment  by  the  keeper  of  the  prison,  without 
warrant,  was  contrary  to  the  law  of  the  land.  He  was  ask- 
ed, "  Know  you  the  law  of  the  land  ?"  "  Very  little,"  he  re- 
plied ;  "  yet  I  was  of  Gray's  Inn  some  years."  When  the 
archbishop  and  the  two  doctors  derided  his  unskillfulness  in 
the  law  (it  being  to  them  ludicrous  that  an  English  subject 
should  complain  of  being  shut  up  in  prison  without  a  war- 
rant from  a  magistrate),  he  added, "  I  look  for  little  help  by 
law  against  you." 

The  archbishop,  proposing  that,  according  to  the  usage  of 
the  High  Commission,  he  should  be  sworn  to  answer  what- 
ever questions  might  be  put  to  him,  asked  him,  "  Will  you 
swear?"  He  answered,  "I  hold  it  lawful  to  swear,  if  it  be 
done  with  due  order  and  circumstances."  "Keach  a  book," 
said  the  archbishop,  "  and  hold  it  him."  With  a  provoking 
simplicity,  the  prisoner  asked,  "  What  shall  I  do  with  it  ?" 


A.D.  1586.]      SEPARATISM    BEFORE    THE    HIGH    COMMISSION.      95 

"Lay  your  hand  upon  it,  man,"  said  Whitgift.  "For  what 
purpose,"  said  Barrowe,  asking  as  if  he  did  not  know.  "To 
swear,"  said  Whitgift.  "  I  use  to  swear  by  no  books,"  was 
the  grave  and  resolute  reply.  Whitgift  explained:  "You 
shall  not  swear  by  the  book,  but  by  God  only."  "  So  I  pur- 
pose when  I  swear,"  was  the  answer.  One  of  the  two  doc- 
tors, Cosins,  interposed  to  inform  the  prisoner  that,  if  he  were 
a  witness  in  a  cause  before  a  secular  court,  and  should  re- 
fuse to  lay  his  hand  on  a  book  and  swear,  his  testimony 
would  not  be  taken  ;  and  thereupon  the  archbishop  added, 
"  Why,  man,  the  book  is  no  part  of  the  oath :  it  is  but  a  cer- 
emony." "A  needless  and  wicked  ceremony,"  said  the  fear- 
less respondent.  Being  reminded  that  the  book  in  question 
was  the  Bible,  the  firm  Separatist  answered,  "I  will  swear 
by  no  Bible."  Cosins  cried  out,  "  Schismatics  are  always 
clamorous."  "True,"  said  Whitgift;  "such  were  the  Dona- 
tists  of  old ;  and  such  art  thou,  and  all  other  schismatics 
such  as  thou  art."  Unabashed  by  their  vituperation, Barrowe 
replied,  "  Say  your  pleasure.  God  forgive  you.  I  am  neither 
schismatic  nor  clamorous.  I  only  answer  your  demands.  If 
you  will,  I  will  be  silent."  Then  followed  more  altercation 
about  the  book-oath,  he  maintaining  that  he  would  "join  no 
creatures  to  the  name  of  God  in  an  oath  ;"  and  that  if  it 
were,  as  they  alleged,  "  only  a  custom  commanded  by  law," 
"the  law  ought  not  to  command  a  wicked  custom."  At 
last,  "  the  archbishop  commanded  Dr.  Cosins  to  record  '  that 
Mr.  Barrowe  refused  to  swear  upon  a  book.' " 

Finding  that  they  could  not  induce  him  to  take  the  oath, 
the  commissioners  proceeded  to  interrogate  him  without 
that  formality;  but  his  answers,  though  prompt  and  per- 
emptory, were  little  else  than  a  continued  refusal  to  become 
his  own  accuser — although  the  archbishop  threatened  him 
with  the  deadly  peril  of  a  trial  for  heresy,  which,  if  he  were 
found  guilty,  would  consign  him  to  the  fire.  When  they 
proposed  to  him  that  he  should  find  security  for  his  good 
behavior,  he  professed  his  readiness  to  do  so  in  any  amount 


96      GENESIS  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CHUECHES.   [CH.  VI. 

they  might  require ;  but  when  the  explanation  was  given 
that  he  would  be  bound  to  frequent  the  churches  of  the  es- 
tablishment, he  replied, "  N'ow  that  I  know  your  mind,  I  will 
enter  into  no  such  bond."  The  end  was  that  he  was  sent  to 
the  Gate-house  j^rison. 

On  Monday  of  the  following  week  (Nov.  27),  he  was 
brought  again  before  the  High  Commission  at  Lambeth  Pal- 
ace, the  Bishop  of  London  (Aylmer)  and  the  Dean  of  St. 
Paul's  being  present  with  the  archbishop.  Again  he  refused 
the  oath.  He  would  not  be  sworn  to  answer  questions  de- 
signed to  make  him  give  testimony  against  himself  An 
informal  paper  was  read  containing  certain  things  which  he 
was  reported  to  have  said  concerning  the  Church  of  En- 
gland; but  he  persisted  in  his  refusal.  "  There  is  much  more 
cause,"  said  he,  "to  swear  mine  accuser;  I  will  not  swear." 
"  Where,"  cried  the  angry  archbishop,  "  is  his  keeper  ?  You 
shall  not  prattle  here.  Away  with  him.  Clap  him  up  close, 
close.  Let  no  man  come  to  him.  I  will  make  him  tell  another 
tale,  ere  I  have  done  with  him." 

Of  course  Barrowe  was  immediately  conveyed  back  to  his 
prison.  There  he  remained,  "  clapped  up  close,"  to  meditate 
on  the  liberty  of  an  Englishman  and  the  theory  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  After  four  months  (1587,  March  24),  he 
was  brought  up  for  a  new  examination  before  a  more  impos- 
ing array  of  the  High  Commission.  There  were  present,  not 
only  the  archbishop  and  the  Bishops  of  London  and  Win- 
chester, but  also  "  the  two  lord  chief  justices,  the  lord  chief 
baron,  and  many  others,"  Again  there  was  the  difficulty 
about  the  oath.  The  prisoner  would  not  swear  by  any 
books  or  Bibles,  but  only  by  "  the  Eternal  God  himself"  He 
would  not  swear  to  be  his  own  accuser.  He  would  take  no 
oath  but  with  "  great  regard  and  reverence,"  and  "  for  con- 
firmation "  of  his  testimony  if  it  were  contradicted  by  some 
false  witness.  "By  God's  grace,"  said  he,  "I  will  answer 
nothing  but  the  truth."  At  last  the  archbishop,  remember- 
insc  that  "  a  Christian  man's  word  oug^ht  to  be  as  true  as  his 


A.D.  1587.]      SEPARATISM   BEFORE    THE    HIGH    COMMISSION.       97 

oath,"  gave  up  the  conflict,  and  proceeded  to  interrogate  the 
Christian  man  before  him.  The  questions  projiosed  to  the 
prisoner  were  designed  to  draw  out  from  him  the  opinions 
of  which  he  was  suspected,  and  which  were,  in  the  judgment 
of  the  inquisitors,  dangerous  to  the  church  and  realm  of  En- 
gland. His  direct  and  fearless  answers  to  the  several  "  arti- 
cles of  inquiry,"  show  clearly  enough  what  the  controversy 
was  between  him  and  the  church  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and 
what  the  crimes  were  of  which  Barrowe  and  the  so-called 
Barrowists  were  guilty. 

1.  "  In  my  opinion,  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  rather  a  summary 
than  an  enjoined  form,  and,  not  finding  it  used  by  the  apos- 
tles, I  think  it  may  not  be  constantly  used." 

2.  "  In  the  word  of  God,  I  find  no  authority  given  to  any 
man  to  impose  liturgies  or  forms  of  prayer  upon  the  church ; 
and  it  is  therefore  high  presumption  to  impose  them." 

3.  "  In  my  opinion,  the  Common  Prayer  " — the  form  of 
worship  actually  imposed  in  England — "  is  idolatrous,  super- 
stitious, and  popish." 

4.  "  The  sacraments  of  the  Church  of  England,  as  they  are 
publicly  administered,  are  not  true  sacraments." 

5.  "As  the  decrees  and  canons  of  the  church  are  so  numer- 
ous, I  can  not  judge  of  all;  but  many  of  them,  and  the  ec- 
clesiastical courts  and  governors,  are  unlawful  and  antichris- 
tian." 

6.  "Such  as  have  been  baptized  in  the  Church  of  England 
are  not  baptized  according  to  the  institution  of  Christ ;  yet 
they  may  not  need  to  be  baptized  again." 

7.  "The  Church  of  England,  as  it  is  now  formed,  is  not 
the  true  church  of  Christ ;  yet  there  are  many  excellent 
Christians  in  it." 

8.  "  The  queen  is  supreme  governor  of  the  whole  land,  and 
over  the  church,  bodies  and  goods ;  but  may  not  make  any 
other  laws  for  the  church  of  Christ  than  He  hath  left  in  his 
word."  ' 

9.  "I  can  not  see  it  lawful  for  any  one  to  alter  the  least 

G 


98  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  VI. 

part  of  the  judicial  law  of  Moses  without  doing  injury  to  the 
moral  law,  and  opposing  the  will  of  God." 

10.  The  question  being,  whether  a  private  person  may  re- 
form the  church  if  the  prince  neglect  it :  "  No  private  per- 
sons may  reform  the  state ;  but  they  ought  to  abstain  from 
all  unlawful  things  commanded  by  the  prince." 

11.  "The  government  of  the  church  of  Christ  belongeth 
not  to  the  ungodly,  but  every  particular  church  ought  to 
have  an  eldership." 

Nothing  was  more  evident  to  Whitgift  and  his  fellow-in- 
quisitors than  that  such  opinions  ought  not  to  be  tolerated 
under  a  Christian  government,  and  that  there  would  be  dan- 
ger to  the  realm  of  England  if  a  man  conscientious  and  cour- 
ageous enough  to  confess  that  he  held  them  should  be  per- 
mitted to  go  at  large.  So  Barrowe  was  clapped  up  again — 
"  close,  close  "  —  none  being  allowed  to  visit  him  ;  and 
"  though  he  earnestly  requested  a  copy  of  his  answers,  the 
favor  could  not  be  obtained." 

After  another  period  of  almost  three  months,  he  was  again 
brought  before  the  High  Commission  (June  18, 1587) ;  pres- 
ent, the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  Lord  Chancellor  Hat- 
ton,  the  Lord  Treasurer  Burleigh,  Lord  Buckhurst,  the  Bishop 
of  London,  Justice  Young,  Dr.  Some,  and  others.  Burleigh 
began  the  examination  ;  and,  after  the  first  question  and  an- 
swer, it  proceeded  in  this  fashion :  "  Why  will  you  not  come 
to  church?"  "My  whole  desire  is  to  come  to  the  church 
of  God."  "I  see  thou  art  a  fantastical  fellow;  but  why  not 
come  to  our  churches?"  "My  lord,  the  causes  are  great 
and  many :  as,first,  because  all  the  wicked  in  the  land  ai  e  re- 
ceived unto  the  communion  ;  secondly^  you  have  a  false  and 
an  antichristian  ministry  set  over  your  church ;  thirdly^  you 
do  not  worship  God  aright,  but  in  an  idolatrous  and  super- 
stitious manner ;  m\di,  fourthly^  your  church  is  not  governed 
by  the  Testament  of  Christ,  but  by  tlie  Romish  courts  and 
canons."  "Here  is  matter  enough,  indeed.  I  perceive  thou 
takest  delight  to  be  an  author  of  tliis  new  religion." 


A.D.  1587.]      SEPARATISM    BEFORE    THE    HIGH    COMMISSION.       99 

Matter  enough — no  doubt !  Hatton,  the  lord  chancellor, 
was  moved  to  betray  his  ignorance  of  religious  questions 
and  his  contemptuous  indifference  :  "  I  never  heard  such 
stuff  in  all  my  life." 

Bishop  Aylmer,  at  that  exclamation,  thought  it  was  time 
for  him  to  give  a  helping  hand.  He  interposed  with  ques- 
tions about  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer ;  and,  being  un- 
wary enough  to  reply  as  well  as  to  ask  questions,  he  denied 
that  his  church  gave  any  part  of  God's  worship  to  any  creat- 
ure. Barrowe's  answer  was,  "Yes,  you  celebrate  a  day  and 
sanctify  an  eve,  and  call  them  by  the  names  of  saints ;  and 
thus  you  make  a  feast,  and  devise  a  w^orship  unto  them." 

Martinmas,  then,  and  Michaelmas,  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
saints'  days,  must  be  wiped  out  of  the  calendar.  Burleigh 
resumed  his  questioning.  "  Why  may  we  not  call  the  days 
by  their  names  ?  Is  not  this  in  our  liberty  ?"  "  No,  my 
lord."  "How  do  you  prove  that?"  "In  the  beginning  of 
the  Bible  it  is  written  that  God  himself  named  all  the  days, 
the  first,  the  second,  etc."  "Then  we  may  not  call  them 
Sunday,  Monday,  etc.  ?"  "  We  are  otherwise  taught  to  call 
them  in  the  word  of  God."  "  Why,  thou  thyself  callest  Sun- 
day the  Lord's  day."  "  And  so  the  Holy  Ghost  calleth  it  in 
the  first  of  Revelation." 

The  grave  lord  treasurer  paused,  and  Aylmer,  eager  to 
defend  the  church,  which  had  done  so  much  for  him,  resumed. 
"We  have  nothing  in  our  saints'  days  but  what  is  taken  forth 
of  the  Scriptures."  "  In  that  you  say  true ;  for  you  find  no 
saints'  days  in  the  Scriptures."  "  We  find  their  histories  and 
deeds  in  the  Scripture."     "  But  not  their  days  and  festivals." 

"He  is  a  proud  spirit,"  said  Lord  Buckhurst.  "He  has  a 
hot  brain,"  said  Lord  Burleigh,  and  proceeded  to  draw  forth 
from  that  hot  brain  more  objections  to  the  mode  of  worship 
established  by  law  and  imposed  inexorably  on  all  Englishmen. 
The  stream  of  talk  flowed  on  till  Buckhurst  cried  out  again, 
"  He  is  out  of  his  wits  !" 

Barrowe,  who  probably  remembered,  better  than  his  lord- 


100  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  YI. 

ship,  what  Festus  on  a  similar  occasion  said  to  Paul,  replied, 
"  No,  my  lord,  I  sj^eak  the  words  of  truth  and  soberness,  as  I 
could  make  apj^ear,  if  I  might  be  suifered." 

Without  seeming  to  notice  the  interruption.  Lord  Burleigh 
went  on  in  his  serious  way,  and  drew  from  the  prisoner  a 
frank  acknowledgment  that  we  ought  to  pray  that  our  lives 
may  be  such  as  the  lives  of  the  saints  were.  The  acknowl- 
edgment w^as  followed  up  and  explained  by  a  protest  against 
being  "  tied  to  days  and  times,"  and  against  being  "restrained 
or  stinted  in  our  prayers,  as  to  time,  place,  manner,  kneeling, 
standing,  etc. ;"  at  which  Lord  Buckhurst  exclaimed,  "  This 
fellow  delighteth  to  hear  himself  talk."  Whereupon  Whit- 
gift,  silent  thus  far,  began  to  show  his  mind  and  temper. 
"He  is  a  sower  of  errors,"  said  the  archbishop;  "and  there- 
fore I  committed  him." 

The  undaunted  Separatist  replied  to  the  Primate  of  all 
England, '''  You,  indeed,  committed  me  half  a  year  close  pris- 
oner in  the  Gate-house,  and  I  never  until  now  understood  the 
cause ;  neither  do  I  yet  know  what  errors  they  are.  Show 
them,  therefore,  I  pray  you." 

"He  has  a  presumptuous  spirit,"  said  Buckhurst.  "My 
lord,"  said  Barrowe,  "  all  spirits  must  be  tried  and  judged  by 
the  word  of  God.  But  if  I  err,  it  is  meet  I  should  be  shown 
wherein."  Doubtless  they  all  felt  that  in  regard  to  the  mat- 
ters of  controversy  between  the  queen's  church  and  the  Sep- 
aratists, it  would  not  be  easy  to  shew  that  man,  so  that  he 
should  see,  wherein  he  had  erred.  After,  perhaps,  a  moment's 
pause,  the  Lord  Chancellor  Hatton  said,  "  There  must  be 
stricter  laws  made  for  such  fellows." 

At  the  suggestion  of  "  stricter  laws  for  such  fellows,"  the 
spirit  that  can  mount  the  scaffold  or  march  to  the  stake 
rather  than  deny  a  persecuted  truth,  uttered  itself  in  the 
words,  "  Would  God  there  were,  my  lord !  Our  journey 
would  then  be  the  shorter." 

Things  were  taking  a  very  serious  aspect.  We  may  sup- 
pose that  even  the  frivolous  Hatton  was  touched  by  that 


A.D.  1587.]     SEPARATISM    BEFORE    THE    HIGH    COMMISSIOX.      101 

last  answer,  and  was  beginning  to  have  some  vague  feeling  of 
how  much  deeper  than  his  thoughts  about  religion  had  ever 
gone,  must  that  conviction  be  which  would  not  be  surren- 
dered even  if  "stricter  laws"  were  made  against  it.  Law 
had  made  him  a  Protestant,  and  if  it  should  change,  it  might 
make  him  a  Papist  again,  or  a  Presbyterian,  or  a  Pagan. 
What  sort  of  a  man,  then,  was  this  prisoner  whose  journey 
would  only  be  the  shorter  if  a  little  more  stringency  in  the 
laws  should  require  him,  under  penalty  of  death,  to  surrender 
his  convictions  concerning  the  church  of  Christ  and  the  wor- 
ship of  God. 

Burleigh  resumed  the  examination,  and,  like  a  man  accus- 
tomed to  deal  with  concrete  and  practical  questions,  he  said 
to  the  prisoner,  "You  complained  to  us  of  injustice.  Where- 
in have  you  suffered  wrong?"  "By  being  imprisoned,  my 
lord,  without  trial,"  was  the  answer.  How  can  this  be?  was 
Burleigh's  instant  thought.  "  You  said  [at  the  beginning  of 
your  examination]  you  were  condemned  upon  the  statute 
[against  recusants]."  Yet  Barrowe  had  not  contradicted  him- 
self; he  had  been  examined  and  imprisoned  by  the  archbishop, 
but  not  tried  ;  and  they  all  so  understood  him  when,  without 
any  explanation, he  replied,  "Unjustly,  my  lord.  That  statute 
was  not  made  for  us."  He  was  right,  and  they  knew  it. 
The  Parliament  that  enacted  that  law — unjust  and  unwise — 
against  Roman  Catholics,  did  not  intend  that  it  should  be 
an  engine  of  persecution  against  any  true  Protestant. 

Then  said  Burleigh,  "  There  must  be  stricter  laws  made  for 
you."  "  Oh,  my  lord  !"  was  the  reply,  "  speak  more  comfort- 
ably. We  have  sorrows  enough."  In  his  response  to  Hat- 
ton's  threat  of  "  stricter  laws,"  the  prisoner,  without  breach 
of  courtesy,  had  answered  a  fool  according  to  his  folly ;  but 
in  giving  this  reply  to  a  similar  intimation  from  Burleigh, 
he  was  appealing  to  a  man  of  larger  and  more  generous 
nature. 

After  a  few  words  more  about  the  injustice  complained  of, 
his  lordship  asked,  "Have  you  not  had  a  conference  ?"    There- 


102  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  VI. 

upon  Bishop  Aylmer,  without  waiting  for  the  prisoner  to  an- 
swer that  question,  said,  "Several  have  been  with  them,  whom 
they  mocked."  Barrowe,  having  small  respect  for  bishops, 
contradicted  him.  "  We  have  mocked  no  man.  Miserable 
physicians  are  you  all.  We  desired  a  public  conference,  that 
all  might  know  our  opinions  and  wherein  we  err." 

A  public  conference  !  As  if  it  were  not  the  chief  end  of  the 
High  Commission  to  suppress  all  public  discussion  of  such 
themes  as  these !  Whitgift  was  roused  by  the  suggestion. 
"You  shall  have  no  such  conference.  You  have  published 
too  much  already  ;  and  therefore  I  committed  you  to  prison." 
"But  contrary  to  law,"  insisted  the  prisoner.  The  lord 
treasurer  interposed  again,  "  On  such  occasions  it  may  be 
done  by  law.  Have  you  any  learning?"  Obviously,  the 
question  referred  to  Barrowe's  professional  studies;  and  he 
replied,  modestly,  "  The  Lord  knoweth  I  am  ignorant.  I  have 
no  learning  to  boast  of  But" — turning  to  the  archbishop — 
"  this  I  know,  that  you  are  void  of  all  true  learning  and  god- 
liness." ^  "  See  the  spirit  of  this  man,"  cried  Buckhurst.  Whit- 
gift, out  of  temper  with  a  prisoner  who  had  charged  him  to 
his  face  with  lack  of  true  learning  and  godliness,  renewed  the 
threat  with  which  he  had  attempted  to  terrify  the  same  man 
seven  months  before :  "  I  have  matter  to  call  you  before  me 
as  a  heretic."  That  threat  meant  more  than  continued  im- 
prisonment, more  than  fines,  however  exorbitant,  more  than 
the  gallows :  it  meant  the  stake,  the  iron  chain,  the  heap  of 
fagots,  and  tlie  fire.  Again  the  stubborn  Separatist  replied, 
''That  you  shall  never  do.  You  know  my  former  judgment 
in  that  matter.  Err  I  may  ;  but  heretic,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
I  will  never  be."  Such  a  reply  was,  in  reality,  almost  a  chal- 
lenge— as  if  he  had  said.  Prove  me  a  heretic  if  you  can. 

Burleigh  turned  the  conversation  to  another  topic.     "Do 

^  The  last  sentence  of  this  answer  is  inconsistent  with  the  respectful  tone 
of  all  that  the  prisoner  said  to  Burleigh  and  to  the  other  lay  lords  in  that 
examination  ;  but  it  is  entirely  consistent  with  the  style  of  his  replies  to  the 
two  prelates. 


A.D.  1587.]     SEPARATISM   BEFORE    THE    HIGH    COMMISSION.      103 

you  not  hold  that  it  is  unlawful  to  enact  a  law  for  ministers 
to  live  by  tithes,  and  that  the  people  be  required  to  pay 
them  ?"  The  answers  to  that  and  other  questions  propound- 
ed an  extremely  radical  doctrine — the  identical  doctrine  with 
which  Wickliffe  had  terrified  the  clergy  so  long  ago.  Min- 
isters of  the  Gospel — in  Barrowe's  theory  of  the  relations  be- 
tween church  and  state — should  be  supported  not  by  tithes, 
nor  by  any  other  assessments  on  the  people  at  large,  but 
wholly  by  the  voluntary  contributions  of  those  to  whom  they 
minister.  The  text  was  quoted,  "Let  him  tliat  is  taught  in 
the  word  communicate  unto  him  that  teacheth  in  all  good 
things" — a  rule  very  diiferent  from  the  law  of  tithes. 
"Wouldst  thou,  then,"  said  Burleigh,  "have  the  minister  to 
have  all  my  goods  ?"  "  No,  my  lord ;  but  I  would  not  have 
you  withhold  your  goods  from  helping  him :  neither  rich  nor 
poor  are  exempted  from  this  duty." 

The  lord  treasurer's  religion  was  not  much  infected  with 
sacerdotalism.  For  some  reason,  he  threw  out  a  remark 
more  Protestant  than  the  theory  which  the  bishops  were  up- 
holding in  the  Church  of  England :  "  Ministers  are  not  now 
called  priests."  "  If  they  receive  tithes,  they  are  priests," 
was  the  prompt  reply;  "they" — who  receive  tithes — "are 
called  priests  in  the  law."  Pedantic  Aylmer,  not  relishing 
the  intimation  that  Christian  ministers  are  not  priests,  and 
fearing  what  might  come  of  it,  thought  that  the  argument 
for  tithes  might  be  helped  by  suggesting  the  etymology 
and  origin  of  the  English  word  priest.  "  What  is  a  presby- 
ter, I  pray  thee?"  "An  elder."  "What,  in  age  only?" 
"  No :  Timothy  was  a  young  man."  "  Presbyter,"  said  the 
Bishop  of  London — who  had  been  tutor  to  Lady  Jane  Grey, 
and  had  made  her  famously  learned  in  Latin  and  Greek — 
"Presbyter  is  Latin  for  priest."  "It  is  no  Latin  word,"  said 
the  prisoner,  "  but  is  derived  from  the  Greek,  and  signifieth 
the  same  as  the  Greek  word,  which  is  elder."  As  if  impelled 
to  expose  more  completely  the  weakness  of  the  argument 
which  he  w^as  trying  to  suggest,  the  bishop  asked  one  question 


104  GKNESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.  VI. 

more  :  "  What,  theD,  dost  thou  make  a  priest  ?"  The  answer 
was  obvious.  "  One  that  offereth  sacrifices ;  for  so  it  is  al- 
ways used  in  the  law." 

The  High  Commissioners  present  in  that  court  could  not 
but  observe  the  courtesy  which  characterized  the  prisoner's 
answers,  bold  as  they  were,  to  the  lord  tveasurer,  the  lord 
chancellor,  and  the  queen's  kinsman,  Lord  Buckhurst ;  nor 
could  they  help  seeing  that  all  customary  terms  of  reverence 
toward  the  highest  dignitaries  of  the  Church  were  wanting 
when  he  addressed  the  Bishop  of  London  or  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury.  As  if  he  were  a  precursor  of  George  Fox,  he 
had  not  once  said  "My  Lord"  to  Aylmer,  nor  "Your  Grace" 
to  Whitgift.  Hatton,  who  was  almost  a  Roman  Catholic, 
but  whose  frivolous  nature  was  incapable  of  any  religious 
earnestness,  had  evidently  been  impressed  with  such  a  defect 
of  courtliness  on  the  part  of  one  who  was  formerly  a  courtier. 
Either  in  the  simplicity  of  his  ignorance,  or  because  he  was 
willing  to  tease  those  prelates  and  to  see  them  worried  out 
of  all  self-command,  he  pointed  at  the  bishop  and  archbishop, 
and  said  to  the  prisoner, "  Do  you  not  know  these  two  men  ?" 
"Yes,  my  lord,"  was  the  answer;  "I  have  cause  to  know 
them."  The  lord  chancellor  asked  again,  "  Is  not  this  the 
Bishop  of  London?"  "I  know  him  for  no  bishop,  my  lord." 
This  was  Barrowe's  explanation.  He  could  honor  the  nobles 
of  England  and  the  queen's  officers  representing  her  suprem- 
acy in  the  state ;  but  he  would  acknowledge  no  bishop  who 
was  not  a  bishop  according  to  the  New  Testament.  Hatton, 
not  yet  satisfied,  persisted  in  his  question,  "What  is  he,  then?" 
The  answer  came  at  last:  "His  name  is  Aylmer,  my  lord. 
The  Lord  pardon  my  fault  that  I  did  not  lay  him  open  as  a 
wolf,  a  bloody  persecutor,  and  an  apostate."  So  much  for 
ray  lord  of  London ;  next  for  Whitgift,  toward  whom  the 
merciless  chancellor's  finger  was  directed.  "What  is  that 
man?"  In  other  words.  What  is  the  title  which  designates 
his  rank  and  office  ?  Thus  challenged  to  declare  his  judg- 
ment concerning  the  functionary  known  as  archbishop  in  an 


A.D.  1587.]     SEPARATISM    BEFORE    THE    HIGH    COMMISSION.     105 

ecclesiastical  establishment  which  was  half  Roman,  and  less 
than  half  Protestant,  the  fearless  Separatist  replied,  "  He  is  a 
monster,  a  miserable  compound ;  I  know  not  what  to  make 
of  him.  He  is  neither  ecclesiastical  nor  civil.  He  is  that 
second  beast  spoken  of  in  the  Revelation" — which  "exerciseth 
all  the  power  of  the  first  beast  before  him,  and  causeth  the 
earth  and  them  which  dwell  therein  to  worship  the  first  beast, 
whose  deadly  wound  was  healed." 

Mischievously  or  earnestly,  Burleigh  seemed  to  be  inter- 
ested in  that  matter.  The  question  whether  the  prelacy  in 
the  English  establishment  was  of  God  or  only  of  men  — 
whether  bishop  and  archbishop  derived  their  power  from  the 
"  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords  "  by  apostolic  succession, 
or  from  Queen  Elizabeth  under  the  laws  of  England — had  al- 
ready been  urged  on  his  attention ;  and  the  manner  in  whicli 
that  power  was  used  by  Whitgift  had  been  the  subject  of 
a  disagreeable  correspondence,  and  almost  of  altercation,  be- 
tween the  primate  and  the  premier.  The  statesmanship  which 
was  working  with  consummate  skill  to  govern  England,  and 
which  found  nothing  in  its  great  task  more  difficult  than  to 
manage  the  queen  and  those  obsequious  creatures  of  her 
will,  the  bishops,  had  reasons  of  its  own  for  saying  of  a  func- 
tionary so  composite  and  anomalous  as  an  archbishop,  "I 
know  not  what  to  make  of  him ;"  and  Burleigh,  with  all  his 
gravity,  could  not  but  smile  inwardly  at  the  alleged  resem- 
blance between  that  officer  and  "  the  second  beast  spoken  of 
in  Revelation."     "  Where  is  the  place  ?"  said  he ;  "  show  it." 

My  lord's  Grace  of  Canterbury  could  endure  this  no  longer. 
While  the  prisoner  was  turning  the  leaves  to  find  the  thir- 
teenth chapter  of  the  Apocalypse,  Whitgift  rose  from  his 
seat,  and,  "gnashing  his  teeth,"  exclaimed,  "Will  you  suffer 
him,  my  lords?"  Thus  the  examination  ended.  "Then  by 
the  wardens  Mr.  Barrowe  was  immediately  plucked  from  off 
his  knees  and  carried  away." 

Greenwood  underwent  a  similar  examination,  and  gave  a 
similar  testimony.     He  refused  to  be  sworn  by  or  upon  any 


106  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  VI. 

book,  though  not  refusing  to  swear  by  the  name  of  God,  "  if 
there  be  any  need."  When  the  commissioners  proceeded  to 
interrogate  him  without  an  oath  (for  it  seems  to  have  been 
their  opinion  that  an  oath  was  of  no  account  without  a 
book),  they  found  him  not  reluctant  to  tell  what  he  believed, 
though  protesting  against  the  attempt  "  to  bring  him  within 
the  compass  of  their  law  by  making  him  accuse  himself."  In 
reply  to  the  question,"  Are  you  a  minister?"  he  said, "I  was 
one,  according  to  your  orders,"  or  ordination.  Had  he  been 
degraded  from  the  clerical  order  by  due  course  of  canon 
law?  No;  but,  said  he,  "I  degraded  myself,  through  God's 
mercy,  by  repentance."  They  interrogated  him  on  the  law- 
fulness of  using  "  any  stinted  forms  of  prayer  in  public  or  in 
private ;"  on  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer — whether  it  was 
contrary  to  the  Scriptures,  and  whether  it  was  "  popish,  su- 
perstitious, and  idolatrous  ;"  on  marriage — whether  he  had 
married  "one  Boman  and  his  wife"  in  the  Fleet  prison;  on 
the  Church  of  England,  whether  it  was  "  a  true  established 
church  of  God" — whether,  as  governed  by  bishops,  it  was 
antichristian — whether  the  sacraments  therein  administered 
were  true  sacraments — whether  the  parish  were  the  church — 
whether  the  church  ought  to  be  governed  by  a  presbytery, 
and  what  the  presbytery  ought  to  be.  They  also  touched 
the  more  radical  topic  of  voluntary  church  reformation  with- 
out tarrying  for  the  prince,  and  whether  the  prince  might 
be  excommunicated  by  a  voluntary  church.  Some  of  his  an- 
swers may  be  given  here,  as  showing  not  only  the  spirit  of 
the  man,  but  also  the  character  of  the  movement  in  which  he 
was  a  leader,  and  for  which  he  was  a  witness. 

On  the  general  question  of  "  stinted  forms  of  prayer,"  or 
liturgies  prescribed  and  imposed  by  authority,  his  testimony 
was,  "It  does  not  appear  lawful  to  use  stinted  prayers,  in- 
vented by  men,  either  publicly  or  privately,  from  any  thing 
I  can  see  in  the  Scriptures." 

Respecting  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  (after  being  as- 
sured by  the  lord  chief  justice,  one  of  the  commissioners, 


A.D.  1587.]     SEPAKATISM    BEFORE    THE    HIGH    COMMISSION.      107 

that  he  should  have  liberty  to  call  back  whatever  statement 
he  might  afterward  desire  to  revoke),  he  said,  "I  hold  it  is 
full  of  errors,  and  the  form  of  it  disagreeable  to  the  Script- 
ures." 

In  opposition  to  the  notion  which  makes  marriage  a  sacra- 
ment, and  some  priestly  intervention  essential  to  its  sacred- 
ness,  he  denied  that  marriage  is  "any  part  of  the  minister's 
office."  He  held  that  the  contract  between  the  parties  to  be 
thenceforward  husband  and  wife  made  them  one  under  the 
law  of  God,  and  that  their  mutual  consent,  expressed  before 
faithful  witnesses — though  in  the  case  referred  to  he  had  of- 
fered prayer — needed  no  priest  or  minister  to  make  it  an  in- 
dissoluble bond. 

When  he  was  asked  whether  the  Church  of  England — the 
institution  represented  before  him  at  that  moment  by  the 
High  Commission  Court — was  "a  true  established  church  of 
God,"  he  answered,  "The  whole  commonwealth  is  not  a 
church."  When  urged  with  the  question  in  another  form : 
"Do  you  know  anytrue  established  church  in  the  land?"  he 
answered,  "If  I  did,  I  would  not  accuse  it  unto  you,."  As 
governed  by  bishops,  and  by  the  laws  then  enforced,  k  was 
"contrary  to  Christ's  word." 

Of  the  sacraments  in  the  national  establishment,  he  said, 
"They  are  not  rightly  administered,  according  to  the  insti- 
tution of  Clirist;  nor  have  they  the  promise  of  grace  :"  "If 
you  have  no  true  church,  you  can  have  no  true  sacraments." 
Yet  he  held  that  there  was  no  need  of  baptizing  again  those 
who  had  received  baptism  in  the  establishment.  While  he 
was  "no  Anabaptist,"  "  differing  from  them  as  far  as  truth 
is  from  error,"  his  own  boy,  a  year  and  a  half  old,  had  received 
the  name  Abel  without  its  being  given  to  him  in  baptism ; 
"because,"  said  the  father,  "I  have  been  in  prison,  and  can 
not  tell  where  to  go  to  a  reformed  church,  where  I  might 
have  him  baptized  according  to  God's  ordinance." 

To  the  question,  "Do  you  not  hold  a  parish  to  be  the 
church  ?"  he  answered,  "  If  all  the  people  were  faithful,  hav- 


108  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.VI. 

ing  God's  law  and  ordinances  practiced  among  them,  I  do." 
A  church  would  then  be  constituted  by  "  the  profession  which 
the  people  make ;"  and,  as  for  its  government,  "  every  con- 
gregation of  Christ  ought  to  be  governed  by  that  presby- 
tery which  Christ  hath  appointed."  To  him  the  presbytery 
which  Christ  hath  appointed  was  not  the  Genevan  or  classic- 
al presbytery  which  the  Puritans  would  introduce  in  place 
of  the  existing  establishment,  but  a  congregational  presby- 
tery— the  "  pastor,  teacher,  and  elder"  in  each  congregation 
of  Christ.  The  church  thus  constituted,"  people  and  presby- 
tery," would  be  Christ's  church,  and  ought  to  practice  God's 
laws,  and  "  correct  vice  by  the  censure  of  the  word."  But 
''  what  if  the  prince  forbid  them  ?"  Then  "  they  must,  never- 
theless, do  that  which  God  commandetJV^ 

That  phrase, "  the  censure  of  the  word,"  pointed  toward  ex- 
communication. Queen  Elizabeth  had  been  excommunicated 
by  the  pope ;  might  not  this  church  government  according 
to  the  New  Testament  do  the  same  thing  ?  In  reference  to 
the  presbyterial  government  which  the  Puritans  were  en- 
deavoring to  establish,  this  was  a  very  grave  question ;  for, 
under  that  system,  the  queen,  instead  of  being  by  virtue  of 
her  own  crown  and  her  baptism  the  supreme  governor  of 
the  Church  of  England,  would  be  a  simple  member  of  the 
church,  on  the  same  level  with  every  other  baptized  English- 
woman. The  crucifix  in  her  private  chapel  might  be  com- 
plained of  to  the  session  or  consistory  of  the  parish.  As  a 
woman,  she  could  sustain  no  ecclesiastical  office,  not  even 
that  of  lay  elder.  She  might  be  excommunicated  by  the  con- 
sistory, and  her  appeals  to  presbytery,  synod,  and  general 
assembly  might  be  in  vain.  "If  the  prince  offend,"  said  the 
examiners  to  Greenwood,  "  may  the  presbytery  excommuni- 
cate him?"  His  answer  was,  "The  whole  church — not  the 
elders — may  excommunicate  any  member  of  that  church,  if 
the  party  continue  obstinate  in  open  transgression."  Even 
if  the  prince  should  have  become,  by  free  consent  and  mutual 
covenant,  a  member  of  that  church,  "there  is  no  exception  of 


A.D.  1587.]       SEPAKATISM  BEFOKE  THE   HIGH  COMMISSION.      109 

persons."  If  our  queen  should  become  a  voluntary  mem- 
ber of  that  voluntary  church, "  I  doubt  not  her  majesty  would 
be  ruled  by  the  word."^ 

The  queen's  supremacy  in  ecclesiastical  matters  would 
vanish,  and  no  place  be  found  for  it.  Each  congregation  of 
worshipers  freely  consenting  to  be  ruled  by  the  word  of  God 
would  be  self-governed  under  Christ ;  for  "  the  Scripture  hath 
set  down  sufficient  laws  for  the  worship  of  God  and  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  church,  so  that  no  man  may  add  unto  it  nor 
diminish  from  it."  The  queen  "  is  supreme  magistrate  over 
all  persons,  to  punish  the  evil  and  defend  the  good;"  but 
"  Christ  is  the  only  head  of  his  church,  and  his  laws  may  no 
man  alter." 

Having  given  this  testimony,  the  confessor  was  sent  back 
to  the  prison. 

1  Brook, "Lives  of  the  Puritans,"  ii.,  21-28.  The  stoiy  of  Barrowe  and 
Greenwood  before  the  High  Commissioners  is  told  briefly  by  Neal,  i.,  201, 
202,  and  more  at  length  by  Hopkins,  iii.,  4G0-4G9. 


110  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.VII. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CONTROVERSY  UNDER  DIFFICULTIES. NATIONALISM,  CONFORM- 
IST   AND    PURITAN,   AGAINST    SEPARATISM. 

Had  not  John  Banyan  been  shut  up  to  dream  in  Bedford 
jail,  he  would  never  have  found  time  to  write  the  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress."  His  influence  would  have  been  limited  and  tran- 
sient in  comparison  with  what  it  has  been  for  two  hundred 
years,  and  will  be  for  centuries  of  years  to  come.  Witnesses 
for  liberty  and  truth  may  be  imprisoned ;  but  ideas  that 
have  life  in  them  find  wings  and  fly  abroad.  The  word  of 
God  is  not  bound. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Barrowe  or  Greenwood  had  writ- 
ten any  thing  for  publication  before  Archbishop  Whitgift 
took  them  under  his  tutelage,  and  set  them  to  study  in  prison 
the  argument  for  a  National  Church,  governed  by  the  queen 
through  her  bishops  and  her  High  Commission.  In  due  time 
the  fruit  of  those  studies  began  to  appear.  While  the  years 
of  their  imprisonment  were  passing,  and  while  the  published 
account  of  their  bold  answers  at  their  several  examinations 
was  provoking  inquiry  and  discussion  in  various  places,  Bar- 
rowe— though  often  he  could  not  "keep  one  sheet  by  him 
while  writing  another" — found  means  and  opportunity  for 
the  writing  of  a  book,  sheet  by  sheet,  which,  notwithstanding 
the  restrictions  on  the  press,  was  printed  in  Holland,  and  be- 
gan to  be  circulated  in  England  (1590).  It  was  entitled 
"A  Brief  Discovery  of  the  False  Church,"  and  was  subscribed 
"by  the  Lord's  most  unworthy  servant  and  witness,  in  bonds, 
Henry  Barrowe."  To  intimate  the  relation  between  the 
new  establishment  and  the  old,  it  bore  upon  its  title-page 
the  motto  (from  Ezekiel  xvi.,  44) :  "  As  the  mother,  such  the 


A.D.  1590.]      CONTROVERSY   UNDER   DIFFICULTIES.  Ill 

daughter  is."^  While  it  exposed  in  the  most  unsparing  fash- 
ion whatever  Puritanism  had  found  fault  with  in  the  es- 
tablished government  and  imposed  liturgy  of  the  National 
Church,  it  went  farther  and  deeper;  and — more  explicitly, 
perhaps,  than  ever  Robert  Browne  had  done — it  assailed  the 
foundation-principle  of  every  national  church,  however  con- 
formed to  the  Puritan  ideal. 

The  author  of  that  book  was  aware  of  the  peril  to  which 
he  was  exposing  himself  "  The  shipmasters,"  said  he,  "  the 
mariners,  merchantmen,  and  all  the  people  that  reign,  row, 
and  are  carried  in  this  false  church,  will  never  endure  to  see 
fire  cast  into  her — they  will  never  endure  to  suifer  loss  of 
their  dainty  and  precious  merchandize;  but, rather,  will  raise 
up  no  small  tumults  and  stirs  against  the  servants  of  God, 
seeking  their  blood  by  all  subtle  and  violent  means,  as  we 
read  in  the  Scriptures  their  predecessors  have  always  done — 
accusing  them  of  treason,  of  troubling  the  state,  schism,  her- 
esy, and  what  not.  But  unto  all  the  power,  learning,  deceit, 
rage  of  the  false  church,  we  oppose  that  little  book  of  God's 
word,  which,  as  the  light,  shall  reveal  her  —  as  the  fire,  con- 
sume her — as  a  heavy  millstone,  shall  press  her  and  all  her 
children,  lovers,  partakers,  and  abettors,  down  to  hell ;  which 
book  we  willingly  receive  as  the  judge  of  all  our  controver- 
sies, knowing  that  all  men  shall  one  day,  and  that  ere  long, 
be  judged  by  the  same." 

Professing  small  respect  for  what  Roman  Catholic  and  An- 
glo-Catholic theologians  call  "the  notes  of  the  church,"^  he 
proposes  a  more  excellent  way.     "  Let  us,  for  the  appeasing 

It  was  printed  in  quarto,  pp.  263.  See  Hanbury,  i.,  39-47. 
2  "  '  The  time  is  short'  to  run  the  race  of  Christianity,  even  when  we  have 
entered  on  it :  how  necessary,  then,  is  it  that  we  should  endeavor  to  find 
speedily,  as  well  as  certainly,  the  arena  in  which  it  is  to  be  run.  It  is  with 
such  views  that  theologians  in  various  ages  have  endeavored  to  lay  down 
rules  for  the  discrimination  of  Christ's  church  by  a  comparatively  short  and 
intelligible  process,  and  these  rules  are  styled  720^^5  or  sif/ns  of  the  church." — 
Palmer," Treatise  on  the  Church"  (New  York,  1841),  i.,  45. 


112  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  VII. 

and  assurance  of  our  consciences,  give  heed  to  the  word  of 
God,  and  by  that  golden  reed  measure  our  temple,  our  altar, 
and  our  worshipers ;  even  by  these  rules  whereby  the  apos- 
tles— those  excellent,  perfect  workmen — planted  and  built 
the  first  churches." 

The  issue  between  the  theory  of  the  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishment and  that  of  the  Separation,  or  between  Nationalism 
and  Congregationalism,  was  clearly  stated.  Nationalism  rests 
on  "this  doctrine,' That  a  Christian  prince  which  publisheth 
and  maintaineth  the  Gospel,  doth  forthwith  make  all  that 
realm  (which  with  open  force  resisteth  not  his  proceedings) 
to  be  held  a  church,  to  Avhom  a  holy  ministry  and  sacraments 
belong,  without  further  and  more  particular  and  personal 
trial,  examination,  and  confession.' "  In  other  words,  if  the 
sovereign  be  Christian,  the  nation  is  a  church,  and  all  sub- 
jects not  in  arms  against  the  Christian  sovereign  are  church 
members.  "This  doctrine,"  said  the  author," we  find, by  the 
word  of  God,  to  be  most  false,  corrupt,  unclean,  dangerous, 
and  pernicious  doctrine ;  contrary  to  the  whole  cause,  prac- 
tice, and  laws,  both  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament ;  break- 
ing at  once  all  Christian  order,  corrupting  and  poisoning  all 
Christian  communion  and  fellowship,  and  sacrilegiously  pro- 
faning the  holy  things  of  God."  Such  being  the  fundamen- 
tal assumption  on  which  a  national  church  is  constituted 
and  governed  by  national  authority,  there  are  good  reasons 
for  a  vehement  rejection  of  it.  "First,  we  know  that  no 
prince,  or  mortal  man,  can  make  any  a  member  of  the  church. 
Princes  may,  by  their  godly  government,  greatly  help  and 
further  the  church,  greatly  comfort  the  faithful,  and  advance 
the  Gospel ;  but  to  choose  or  refuse,  to  call  or  harden,  that 
the  Eternal  and  Almighty  Ruler  of  heaven  and  earth  keep- 
eth  in  his  own  hands,  and  giveth  not  this  power  unto  any 
other.  This  also  we  know,  that  whom  the  Lord  hath  before 
all  w^orlds  chosen,  them  he  will,  in  his  due  time  and  means, 
call  by  his  word  ;  and  whom  he  calleth,  them  he  sealeth  with 
his  seal  to  depart  from  iniquity,  to  believe  and  lay  hold  of 


A.D.  1590.]       CONTROVERSY    UNDER    DIFFICULTIES.  113 

Christ  Jesus  as  their  alone  Saviour — to  honor  and  obey  him 
as  their  anointed  king,  priest,  and  prophet — to  submit  them- 
selves unto  him  in  all  things  —  to  be  reformed,  corrected, 
governed,  and  directed  by  his  most  holy  word,  vowing  their 
faithful  obedience  unto  the  same  as  it  shall  be  revealed  unto 
them.  By  this  faith,  confession,  and  profession,  every  m'em- 
ber  of  Christ,  from  the  greatest  unto  the  least,  without  re- 
spect of  persons,  eutereth  into  and  standeth  in  the  church. 
In  this  faith  have  all  the  faithful  congregations  in  the  world, 
and  true  members  of  the  same  body,  fellowship  each  with 
other;  and  out  of  this  faith  have  the  true  servants  of  God 
no  fellowship,  no  communion  with  any  congregation  or  mem- 
ber, how  flourishing  titles  or  fair  shows  soever  they  make 
here  in  the  flesh." 

What  theologians  have  called  the  doctrine  of  particular  elec- 
tion— in  other  words,  the  doctrine  that  God,  in  saving  men 
through  Christ,  deals  not  with  generic  human  nature  only,  nor 
with  nations  only,  but  with  the  individual  souls,  one  by  one, 
whom  he  chooses,  whom  he  calls,  whom  he  sanctifies — was  in- 
corporated into  the  conception  of  the  true  church  in  Barrowe's 
"  Discovery  of  the  False  Church."  The  individuality  of  human 
souls  in  the  presence  of  God  is  their  individual  responsibility. 
Responsible  each  for  others  by  reason  of  those  mutual  rela- 
tions and  reciprocal  duties  and  influences  which  constitute 
society,  all  human  souls  are  individually  responsible  to  God. 
"  Now,  then,  seeing  every  member  hath  interest  in  the  pub- 
lic actions  of  the  church,  and  [all]  together  shall  bear  blame 
for  the  defaults  of  the  same ;  -and  seeing  all  our  communion 
must  be  in  the  truth,  and  that  we  are  not  to  be  drawn  by 
any  into  any  willing  or  known  transgressions  of  God's  law, 
who  can  deny  but  every  particular  member  hath  power,  yea, 
and  ought  to  examine  the  manner  of  administering  the  sac- 
raments, as  also  the  estate,  disorder,  or  transgressions  of  the 
whole  church ;  yea,  and  not  to  join  in  any  known  transgres- 
sion with  them,  but  rather  to  call  them  all  to  repentance," 
and  even  "  to  leave  their  fellowship  rather  than  to  partake  in 

H 


114  GENESIS    OP   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHEr        [cH.  VII. 

their  wickedness."  It  seems  to  have  been  a  saying  in  those 
days,  by  way  of  apology  for  not  separating  from  an  ecclesi- 
astical establishment  that  would  not  be  reformed,  "Every 
man  eateth  to  his  own  salvation  or  damnation  ;  therefore  the 
open  sins  of  minister  or  people  do  neither  hurt  the  sacra- 
ments there  administered  nor  the  godly  conscience  of  the  re- 
ceivers." The  Separatist's  answer  was,  "  What  sense  or  se- 
quel is  in  these  reasons  ?  What  can  be  devised  more  false 
or  foolish  ?  Because  every  one  is  to  look  to  his  own  private 
estate,  therefore  no  man  may  meddle  with  another  man's,  or 
with  the  public  estate  I  Were  he  not  as  foolish  that  could 
be  led  or  carried  with  these  reasons,  as  they  that  made 
them  ?" 

Some  description  of  the  true  church  was  necessary  to  any 
full  exposure  of  the  false  church.  Is  the  spiritual  common- 
wealth of  Christ's  disciples  a  hierarchy  ?  What  offices  of 
dignity  and  power  does  its  constitution  provide  for  or  require? 
Barrowe's  positive  doctrine  on  that  point  is  very  simple : 
"The  ministry  appointed  unto  the  government  and  service 
of  the  church  of  Christ  we  find  to  be  of  two  sorts,  elders  and 
deacons — the  elders,  some  of  them  to  give  attendance  unto 
the  public  ministry  of  the  word  and  sacraments,  as  the  pas- 
tor and  teacher;  the  other  elders, together  with  them, to  give 
attendance  to  the  public  order  and  government  of  the  church 
— the  deacons  to  attend  the  gathering  and  distributing  the 
goods  of  the  church." 

The  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  imposed  on  all  Englishmen 
with  its  ceremonial  uniformity,  as  the  only  mode  of  worship, 
was  the  first  occasion  of  Protestant  opposition  to  the  ecclesias- 
tical establishment,  and  of  a  demand  for  more  thorough  refor- 
mation. The  more  rigorously  the  vestments  and  ceremonies 
supposed  to  be  "  popish  "  were  enforced  upon  scrupulous  con- 
sciences, the  more  numerous  and  the  more  obstinate  were  the 
scruples  of  Nonconformists.  Yet  the  Puritans,  generally,  de- 
manded only  a  reformation  of  the  prescribed  forms  of  worship. 
Some  of  them  might  have  been  satisfied  with  a  few  changes. 


A.D.  1590.]      CONTROVERSY  TTNDER  DIFFICULTIES.  115 

Others  would  have  accepted  no  liturgy  less  Protestant  in  form 
or  spirit  than  that  which  Calvin  introduced  in  Geneva,  and 
which  had  been  adopted  with  only  slight  changes  in  the  Re- 
formed churches  of  Scotland  and  of  the  Continent.  But  the 
Separatists,  as  the  examinations  of  Barrowe  and  Greenwood 
have  shown  us,  had  taken  a  more  advanced  position  in  the 
controversy  about  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  So  radical 
was  their  doctrine,  that  to  them  any  possible  form  of  prayer, 
prescribed  by  whatever  authority,  and  imposed  upon  Christ's 
churches  as  a  substitute  for  free  and  spiritual  worship,  was 
like  the  interposition  of  a  visible  image  between  the  wor- 
shiper and  God.  The  discoverer  of  the  false  church  had  no 
lack  of  objections  against  particular  things  in  the  queen's 
prayer-book,  nor  was  he  careful  to  measure  the  language  in 
which  he  stated  his  objections.  In  some  passages  the  coarse- 
ness of  his  vituperation,  though  less  offensive  to  English  ears 
in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  than  it  would  be  if  used  in  the  reign 
of  Victoria,  is  such  as  can  not  be  justified,  even  if  it  should 
be  paralleled  with  quotations  from  Luther,  who  was  some- 
times more  vehement  than  any  Hebrew  prophet.  But  the 
stress  of  his  argument  against  the  English  liturgy  was  not 
so  much  against  the  contents  of  it — "  abstracted  out  of  the 
pope's  blasphemous  mass-book" — "old  rotten  stuff,"  reeking 
with  odors  of  decay — as  against  the  principle  of  prescribed 
and  imposed  forms  of  worship. 

"This  book,"  said  he,  "  in  that  it  standeth  a  public  prescript 
continued  liturgy" — "if  it  were  the  best  that  ever  was  de- 
vised by  mortal  man,  yet,  in  this  place  and  use  (being  brought 
into  the  church,  yea,  or  into  any  private  house),  becometh  a 
detestable  idol,  standing  for  that  it  is  not  in  the  church  of 
God  and  consciences  of  men,  namely,  for  holy,  spiritual,  and 
faithful  prayer."  Nay,  being  not  prayer,  but  a  form  sub- 
stituted for  the  spiint  of  prayer,  it  is  "  an  abominable  and 
loathsome  sacrifice  in  the  sight  of  God,  even  as  a  dead  dog. 
Now,  under  the  law  .  . .  every  sacrifice  must  be  brought  quick 
and  new  unto  the  altar,  and  there  be  slain  morning  and  even- 


116  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  VII. 

ing :  how  much  more  in  this  spiritual  temple  of  God,  where 
the  offerings  are  spiritual,  and  God  hath  made  all  his  servants 
kings  and  priests  to  offer  up  acceptable  sacrifices  unto  him 
through  Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  thereunto  given  them  his 
Holy  Spirit  into  their  hearts,  to  help  their  infirmities  and 
teach  them  to  say,  Abba,  Father  !  How  much  more  hath  he 
who  ascended  given  graces  unto  those  his  servants  whom  he 
useth  in  such  high  places  to  the  repairing  of  the  saints,  the 
work  of  the  ministry,  and  the  edification  of  the  church  !  God 
useth  them  as  his  mouth  unto  the  church ;  the  church  again, 
on  the  other  side,  useth  them  as  their  mouth  unto  the  Lord. 
Shall  we  think  that  God  hath  any  time  left  these  his  serv- 
ants so  singly  furnished  and  destitute  of  his  grace  that  they 
can  not  find  words  according  to  their  necessities  and  faith  to 
express  their  wants  and  desires,  but  need  thus  be  taught  line 
unto  line,  as  children  new  weaned  from  the  breasts,  what  and 
when  to  say,  how  much  to  say,  and  when  to  make  an  end  ?" 
"  Prayer  I  take  to  be  a  confident  demanding,  which  faith 
maketh  through  the  Holy  Ghost,  according  to  the  will  of 
God,  for  their  present  wants  and  estate.  How  can  any  pre- 
script stinted  liturgy  which  was  penned  many  years  or  days 
before  be  called  a  pouring  forth  of  the  heart  unto  the  Lord, 
or  those  faithful  requests  which  are  stirred  up  in  them  by 
the  Holy  Ghost  according  to  their  present  wants  and  the 
present  estate  of  their  hearts  or  church?"  "Is  not  this" — 
this  imposing  of  prescribed  forms  of  prayer  upon  the  churches 
— "  presumptuously  to  undertake  to  teach  the  Spirit  of  God, 
and  to  take  away  his  ofiice,  who,  as  hath  been  said,  instruct- 
eth  all  the  children  of  God  to  pray,  even  with  inward  sighs 
and  groans  inexpressible,  and  giveth  both  words  and  utter- 
ance ?"  "  Is  not  this,  if  they  will  have  their  written  stuff  to 
be  held  and  used  as  prayer,  to  bind  the  Holy  Ghost  to  the 
froth  and  leaven  of  their  lips  as  it  were*to  the  holy  word  of 
God  ?  Is  it  not  utterly  to  quench  and  extinguish  the  Spirit 
of  God  both  in  the  ministry  and  people,  while  they  tie  both 
them  and  God  to  their  stinted,  numbered  prayers  ?" 


A.D.  1590.]       CONTROVERSY    UNDER    DIFFICULTIES.  117 

All  this  is  significant  as  to  the  divergence  of  Separatism 
from  Puritanism.  But  much  more  significant  are  the  pas- 
sages in  which  the  author  exposed  the  attempt  of  certain 
Puritan  clergymen  to  institute  and  carry  on  a  presbyterial 
government  in  the  National  Church.  Such  an  attempt,  hav- 
ing been  commenced  many  years  before,  was  still  in  progress. 
Several  presbyteries  or  classes  had  been  organized,  meeting 
secretly,  and  vainly  endeavoring  to  administer  a  reformed 
discipline,  which,  till  a  reforming  sovereign,  or  at  least  a  re- 
forming Parliament,  should  arise,  might  in  some  degree  sup- 
ply the  lack  of  really  evangelical  discipline  in  the  ecclesias- 
tical establishment  of  the  kingdom.  The  severity  of  lan- 
guage with  which  Barrowe  described  that  scheme  and  its 
authors  is  worthy  of  notice  : 

"  Let  me,  in  a  word  or  two,  give  you  warning  of  the  other 
sort  of  enemies  of  Christ's  kingdom — the  Pharisees  of  these 
times.  I  mean  your  great  learned  preachers,  your  good 
men  that  sigh  and  groan  for  '  reformation,'  but  their  hands, 
with  the  sluggard,  deny  to  work.  These  counterfeits  would 
raise  up  a  second  error,  even  as  a  second '  beast,' ^  by  so  much 
more  dangerous,  by  how  much  it  hath  more  show  of  the 
truth.  These  men,  instead  of  this  gross  antichristian  gov- 
ernment which  is  now  manifest  and  odious  unto  all  men,  would 
bring  in  a  new  adulterate  forged  government  in  show  (or 
rather  in  despite)  of  Christ's  government."  "They,  in  their 
pride,  rashness,  ignorance,  and  sensuality  of  their  fleshly 
hearts,  most  miserably  innovate  and  corrupt"  Christ's  gov- 
ernment over  his  churches. 

'  See  ante,  p.  105.  The  figure  of  that  "  second  beast,"  which,  though  "  he 
had  two  horns  like  a  lamb, " nevertheless  "spake  as  a  dragon, "  which  "ex- 
erciseth  all  the  power  of  the  first  beast,"  which  "deceiveth  them  that  dwell 
on  the  earth,"  and  "causeth  all,  both  small  and  great,  rich  and  poor,  free 
and  bond,  to  receive  a  mark,"  so  that  "no  man  might  buy  or  sell  saA-e  he 
that  had  the  mark  " — seems  to  have  been,  with  Barrowe,  a  favorite  illustra- 
tion of  what  a  state  church,  pretending  to  maintain  a  church  government 
over  all  the  subjects  of  the  realm,  must  needs  be. 


118  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  VII. 

"  The  thing  itself  they  innovate  and  corrupt,  in  that  they 
add  new  devices  of  their  own — as,  their  pastoral  suspension 
from  their  sacraments,  their  set  continued  synods,  their  select 
classis  of  ministers,  their  settled  supreme  council."  As  yet 
their  scheme  of  discipline  existed  only  in  the  germ,  for  the 
only  power  which  a  Puritan  minister  in  a  Church  of  England 
parish  had  of  inflicting  any  thing  like  a  church  censure  was 
the  power  of  privately  admonishing  and  repelling  from  the 
Lord's  table  any  gross  offender.  Out  of  this  germ  of  "pas- 
toral suspension  from  their  sacraments"  they  hoped  the  whole 
scheme  of  a  presbyterial  church  government  over  the  nation 
might,  in  due  time,  be  developed.  Barrowe  and  the  Sepa- 
ratists, as  they  compared  that  scheme  with  the  model  which 
they  found  in  the  New  Testament,  were  of  the  oi^inion  which 
Milton,  himself  a  Separatist,  afterward  exj^ressed — 

"New  'presbyter' is  but  old  'priest'  writ  large." 

No  man  who  had  dared  to  withdraw  from  the  National 
Church,  and  to  denounce  the  idea  of  it  as  essentially  anti- 
christian,  could  be  expected  to  speak  very  respectfully  of  the 
timid  and  stealthy  manner  in  which  those  non-separating  re- 
formers were  proceeding.  Barrowe  did  not  disguise  his  con- 
tempt of  "  the  weak  and  fearful  practice  of  some  of  their  for- 
ward men,  who,  that  they  might  make  a  fair  show  among 
their  rude,  ignorant  parishioners,  set  up,  instead  of  Christ's 
government,  their  counterfeit  'discipline'  in  and  over  all  the 
parish,  making  the  popish  churchwardens  and  perjured  quest- 
men elders.  And  for  Mr.  Parson  himself,  he  takes  unto  him 
the  instrument  of  that  'foolish  shepherd'  [Zech.  xi.,  15],  his 
pastoral  staff"  or  wooden  dagger  of '  suspension,'  wherewith 
he  keepeth  such  a  flourishing  as  the  flies  can  have  no  rest ; 
yea,  by  your  leave,  if  any  poor  man  in  any  parish  offend  him, 
he  may,  peradventure,  go  without  his  bread  and  wine  that 
day."  _ 

It  did  not  escape  the  notice  of  Barrowe  that  the  Puritan 
scheme  proposed  an  ecclesiastical  government  of  the  people, 


A.D.  1590.]       CONTROVERSY    UNDER    DIFFICULTIES.  119 

but  not  hy  the  people.  "  Their  permanent  synods  and  coun- 
cils," he  said,  "  which  they  would  erect — not  here  to  speak 
of  their  new  Dutch  classis,  for  therein  is  a  secret  —  should 
only  consist  of  priests — or  ministers,  as  they  term  them.  Peo- 
ple of  the  churches  [must]  be  shut  out,  and  neither  be  made 
acquainted  with  the  matters  debated  there,  nor  have  free  voice 
in  those  synods  and  councils,  but  must  receive  and  obey, 
without  contradiction,  whatever  those  learned  priests  shall 
decree.  These  synods'  and  councils'  decrees . . .  are  most  holy, 
without  controlment,  unless  it  be  by  the  prince  or  the  high 
court  of  Parliament."  "  The  '  ancient  ways'  of  the  Lord  are 
the  only  true  Avays;  whatever  is  second,  or  diverse,  is  new  and 
false.  This  I  say,  because  both  these  factions  (of  our  pontif- 
ical and  reforming  priests)  have  sought  rather  to  the  broken 
pits  and  dry  cisterns  of  men's  inventions,  for  their  direction 
and  groundwork,  than  unto  the  pure  fountain  of  God's  word." 
"You  see  how  the  one  side — the  Pontificals,  I  mean  — 
.  .  .  reject  all  claim  the  people  can  make,  refuting  them  by 
MachiavePs  considerations  and  Aristotle's  politics  instead  of 
the  New  Testament ;  alleging,  I  wot  not  how  many,  inconven- 
iences in  way  of  bar.  The  other  sect,  or  faction  rather — these 
Reformists — ^howsoever,  for  fashion's  sake,  they  give  the  peo- 
ple a  little  liberty,  to  sweeten  their  mouths  and  make  them 
believe  that  they  should  choose  their  own  ministers ;  yet, 
even  in  this  pretended  choice,  they  do  cozen  and  beguile 
them  also,  leaving  them  nothing  but  the  smoky,  windy  title 
of  election  only,  enjoining  them  to  choose  some  university 
clerk,  one  of  these  college-birds  of  their  own  brood,  or  else 
comes  a  synod  in  the  neck  of  them,  and  annihilates  the  elec- 
tion whatsoever  it  be.  They  have  also  a  trick  to  stoj)  it,  be- 
fore it  come  so  far;  namely,  in  the  ordination,  which  must, 
forsooth,  be  done  by  other  priests,  for  the  church  that  chooseth 
him  hath  no  power  to  ordain  him.  And  this  makes  the 
mother  church  of  Geneva,  and  the  Dutch  classis — I  dare  not 
say  the  secret  classis  in  England — to  make  ministers  for  us 
in  Engjland." 


120         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  VII. 

The  Reverend  George  Giffard,  who  wrote  himself  "  Min- 
ister of  God's  holy  word  in  Maldon"  (Essex),  "was  a  great 
and  diligent  preacher,  and  much  esteemed  by  many  of  good 
rank  in  the  town,  and  had  brought  that  place  to  more  sobri- 
ety and  knowledge  of  true  religion."  He  had  suffered  as  a 
Puritan,  "  there  being  some  things  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  which  he  was  not  persuaded  of  to  be  agreeable  to 
the  word  of  God."  For  this  and  other  alleged  offenses,  he 
had  been  suspended  from  his  ministry,  brought  before  the 
High  Commission,  and  imprisoned ;  but,  for  want  of  evidence 
to  sustain  the  charges  against  him,  he  had  been  released  and 
permitted  to  resume  his  work.  Persisting  in  his  opinions 
and  practices,  he  came  again  under  the  censure  of  Bishoj) 
Aylmer,  more  than  two  years  before  the  imprisonment  of 
Barrowe  and  Greenwood,  and  was  a  second  time  suspended 
from  his  functions.  On  both  occasions  his  friends — among 
whom  were  some  of  the  aldermen  and  other  official  persons 
in  that  town — made  their  earnest  petition  to  the  bishop  in 
his  behalf,  and  in  both  instances  he  was  released  and  re- 
stored— probably  because  the  influence  of  Lord  Burleigh,  to 
whom  they  represented  the  case,  and  whom  they  persuaded 
to  intercede  for  them  with  Archbishop  Whitgift,  was  too 
powerful  to  be  resisted.  What  Giffard's  position  was  among 
the  Puritan  clergymen  of  Essex  appears  from  a  supplication 
which  twenty-seven  of  them  made,  about  that  time,  to  the 
Lords  of  the  Council,  and  in  which,  after  protesting  their 
loyalty  as  subjects  and  their  fidelity  as  preachers  of  the  Gos- 
pel, they  said,  "  We  are  in  great  heaviness,  and  some  of  us 
already  put  to  silence,  and  the  rest  living  in  fear,  .  .  .  be- 
cause w^e  refuse  to  subscribe  '  that  there  is  nothing  contained 
in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  contrary  to  the  w^ord  of 
God.' "  Of  the  names  subscribed  to  that  petition,  George 
Giff"ard  is  the  first.  So  it  came  to  pass  that,  notwithstand- 
ing the  vigilance  of  Aylmer  and  Whitgift,  that  "  minister  of 
God's  holy  word  "  was  still  at  his  post  in  Maldon,  carrying 
on  "the  reformation  he  had  made  in  that  market-town  by 


A.D.  1590.]         PUEITANISM   AGAINST   SEPARATISM.  121 

his  preaching,"  and  steadily  puritanizing  the  whole  parish, 
when  BaiTOwe  sent  forth,  from  his  prison,  the  "Discovery 
ofthe  False  Church."' 

It  was  only  among  Puritans,  and  in  parishes  where  there 
were  ministers  who  felt  themselves  to  be  not  priests,  but 
"ministers  of  God's  word,"  that  such  a  book  was  likely  to 
find  readers.  We  may  presume  that  in  the  market-town  of 
Maldon,  and  in  other  parishes  of  Essex  under  the  twenty- 
seven  Puritan  ministers,  there  were  some  whose  Puritanism 
was  almost  ready  to  lapse  into  Separatism,  and  to  whom  the 
arguments  and  invectives  of  that  book,  or  even  the  bold  and 
incisive  answers  which  the  Separatist  confessors  had  given 
before  the  High  Commission,  would  be  as  fire  to  fuel  pre- 
pared for  burning.  The  Maldon  preacher  found  himself 
called  to  refute  the  opinions  of  Barrowe  and  his  fellow-con- 
fessor; and,  very  promptly,  he  published  "A  Short  Treatise 
against  the  Donatists  of  England,  whom  we  call  Brownists, 
wherein,  by  answers  unto  certain  writings  of  theirs,  divers 
of  their  heresies  are  noted,  with  sundry  fantastical  opinions." 
Very  convenient  was  that  word  "  Donatist."  It  was  a  name 
taken  from  ecclesiastical  history;  few  of  the  laity  would 
know  the  meaning  of  it,  and  most  readers  would  assume  that 
it  meant  something  very  bad,  and  that  even  a  godly  man 
was  in  danger  of  lapsing  into  Donatism  if  he  had  fellowship 
with  the  Brownists.  "There  is  risen  up  among  us,"  said 
Giffard,  "  a  blind  sect,  opposite  to  these  [the  Papists],  which 
is  so  furious  that  it  cometh  like  a  raging  tempest  from  a 
contrary  coast,  so  that  our  ship  is  tossed  between  contrary 
waves.  For  these  cry  aloud  that  our  assemblies  be  Romish, 
idolatrous,  and  antichristian  synagogues ;  that  we  worship 
the  beast,  receive  his  mark,  and  stand  under  his  yoke ;  and, 
finally,  that  we  have  no  ministry,  no  word  of  God,  nor  sac- 
raments." Briefly,  the  embarrassing  question  for  the  Puri- 
tans who   maintained  their  connection  with  the  National 

^  Brook,  ii.,  273-278.    Strype,"  Aylmer,"  71-73 ;  "  Whitgift,"  i.,  152, 153. 


122  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  VII. 

Church  in  the  hope  of  reforming  it,  was  this,  If  the  Cliurch 
of  England  is  a  true  church,  why  is  not  the  Church  of  Rome 
a  true  church?  The  question  which  Giffard,  by  the  very 
title  of  his  book,  committed  himself  to  answer  was,  How  is 
it  that  those  who  separate  from  the  Church  of  England  for 
the  sake  of  a  purer  worship  and  a  strictly  evangelical  disci- 
pline deserve  to  be  stigmatized  with  the  name  of  an  ancient 
and  maligned  schism,  unless  the  Church  of  England  itself 
have  become  Donatist  by  separating  from  the  self-styled 
Catholic  Church  under  the  pretense  of  reformation  and  for  the 
sake  of  throwing  off  an  unwarranted  government  and  super- 
stitious worship?  Doubtless  his  solution  of  that  difficulty 
was  satisfactory  to  himself,  but  it  did  not  satisfy  those  whom 
he  called  the  Donatists  of  England. 

Another  champion  of  the  National  Church  was  already  in 
the  field.  Even  before  the  "  Discovery  of  the  False  Church  " 
had  been  printed.  Dr.  Robert  Some  had  assailed  Barrowe 
and  Greenwood  in  a  book  which  he  dated  "from  my  Lord's 
Grace  of  Canterbury  his  house  in  Lambeth,"  and  which  he 
entitled  "A  Godly  Treatise,  wherein  are  examined  and  con- 
futed many  execrable  fancies,  given  out  and  holden,  partly 
by  Henry  Barrowe  and  John  Greenwood,  and  partly  by  oth- 
er of  the  Anabaptistical  order."  Dr.  Some  had  already  at- 
tempted to  defend  the  National  Church  against  Puritan  re- 
formers, and  his  earlier  "  Godly  Treatise,"  five  times  larger 
than  this,  will  be  mentioned  in  the  progress  of  our  story. 
He  had  now  found  that  another  movement,  more  revolution- 
ary in  its  remoter  tendencies  than  Puritanism,  was  stirring 
the  thoughts  of  some  earnest  Englishmen ;  and  as  the  Re-. 
formist  preacher  in  Maldon  called  those  men  Donatists  whose 
plans  of  reform'ation  were  more  radical  than  his  own,  so  to 
this  Conformist  writer  in  Lambeth  Palace  it  seemed  equally 
convenient  and  more  efficient  to  call  them  by  a  name  which 
was  not  only  more  reproachful  theologically,  but  more  alarm- 
ing to  the  secular  power.  He  called  them  Anabaptists. 
Dedicating  his  pamphlet  to  Lord  Chancellor  Hatton  and 


A.D.  1590.]         PURITANISM   AGAINST   SEPARATISM.  123 

Lord  Treasurer  Burleigh,  he  complained  that  "  the  Anabap- 
tistical  sort"  were  growing  bold.  "Henry  Barrowe  and 
John  Greenwood,"  said  he,  "are  the  masters  of  that  college; 
men  as  yet  " — after  so  many  years  of  imprisonment — "  very 
willful  and  ignorant.  The  way  to  cure  them,  if  God  will,  is 
to  teach  and  punish  them." 

The  two  prisoners,  notwithstanding  the  difficulties  under 
which  they  labored,  were  prompt  in  sustaining  their  part  of 
the  controversy.  In  the  same  year  with  the  publication  of 
Giffard's  treatise  (1590),  there  came  forth,  printed,  doubtless, 
at  some  foreign  press.  Greenwood's  "  Answer  to  George  Gif- 
fard's pretended  Defense  of  Read  Prayers  and  Devised  Lit- 
urgies." It  was  a  vehement  attack  on  the  Puritan  party, 
not  only  exposing  the  erroneous  principles  of  those  reform- 
ers who  retained  their  connection  with  the  ecclesiastical  es- 
tablishment, and  recognized  it  as  the  church  of  Christ  in 
England,  but  even  assailing  their  persons  with  most  unchar- 
itable vituperation.  "Railing  accusations,"  however  inex- 
cusable, are  a  natural  weapon  in  such  a  conflict  as  that  which 
the  Separatists  were  waging.  Overwhelmed  with  oppro- 
brium from  the  Prelatists,  on  one  side,  and  the  Puritans  on 
the  other,  they  did  not  always  follow  the  example  of  Him 
"who  when  he  was  reviled,  reviled  not  again."  That  we 
may  fairly  appreciate  the  controversy  between  Puritanism 
and  Separation,  we  must  see  with  what  invectives  each  as- 
sailed the  other. 

Gifiard's  position  in  the  National  Church  was  only  that  of 
a  lecturer  or  "stipendiary  preacher."  A  special  sermon  on 
a  week-day,  or  in  the  afternoon  of  the  Lord's  day,  was  called 
a  lecture,  and  could  be  preached  by  ministers  whose  non- 
conformity made  them  unable  to  serve  in  the  care  of  a  par- 
ish. The  Puritan  clergy  were  zealous  preachers  ;  their  chief 
work  in  their  own  estimation  was  the  holding  forth  of  God's 
word  rather  than  the  reading  of  prayers  or  the  administra- 
tion of  sacraments.  The  Puritan  laity  were  diligent  hearers 
of  sermons,  and  earnest  to  have  their  neighbors  hear  with 


124         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  VII. 

them.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  for  the  sermon-loving  in- 
habitants of  a  parish,  especially  in  a  market-town,  to  estab- 
lish a  lecture,  providing  a  stipend  for  the  lecturer  either  by  a 
temporary  subscription  or  by  a  settled  endowment.  Under 
such  an  arrangement  George  Giffard  was  a  "  minister  of  God's 
holy  word  in  Maldon."  Against  him  holding  such  a  place, 
and  yielding  only  that  partial  and  compromising  conformity 
to  the  usurpations  of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment,  the  un- 
compromising Greenwood  gave  indignant  testimony. 

"  He  writeth  himself '  minister  of  God's  holy  word  in  Mal- 
don.' .  .  .  He  hath  not  in  Maldon  the  credit  or  room  of  so 
much  as  a  curate,  the  pastor  there  supplying  his  own  office ; 
but  he  is  brought  in  by  such  of  the  parish  as,  having  '  itch- 
ing ears,'  get  unto  themselves  a  heap  of  new-fangled  teach- 
ers, after  their  own  lusts,  disliking  and  watching  the  min- 
istry that  is  set  over  them,  to  which,  notwithstanding,  in  hy- 
pocrisy and  for  fear  of  the  world,  they  join  in  prayer  and 
sacraments,  and  pay  tithes  and  maintenance  as  to  the  proper 
minister.  To  such  people,  being  rich  and  able  to  pay  them 
well,  these  sectary  precise  *  preachers '  run  for  their  hire  and 
wages,  but  chiefly  for  vain  glory  and  worldly  ostentation. 
And  there  they  teach  and  preach  .  .  .  for  the  most  part  un- 
der some  dumb  and  plurified  pastor,  from  whom,  as  from  in- 
sufficient and  blind  guides,  they  withdraw  not  the  people. .  . . 
Yet,  for  their  own  estimation,  advantage,  and  entertainment, 
they  will  by  all  subtle  means,  underhand,  seek  to  alienate 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  this  forward  and  best-inclined  peo- 
ple from  these  their  pastors,  and  slily  to  draw  them  unto 
themselves. 

"Long  it  were  to  relate  their  arts  and  engines  whereby 
they  hunt  and  entangle  poor  souls  ;  their  counterfeit  shows 
of  holiness  .  .  .  austereness  of  manners,  preciseness  in  trifles, 
large  conscience  in  matters  of  greatest  weight — especially  of 
any  danger ;  straining  at  a  gnat  and  swallowing  a  camel ; 
hatred  and  thundering  against  some  sin ;  tolerating,  yea,  col- 
oring some  other  in  some  special  persons  .  . .  holding  and  with- 


A.D.  1590.]         PURITANISM:    AGAINST   SEPARATISM.  125 

holding  the  known  truth  of  God  in  respect  of  times,  places, 
and  persons  .  .  .  under  the  color  of  peace,  Christian  policy, 
and  wisdom. 

"Hence  arise  these  schisms  and  sects  in  the  Church  of  En- 
gland ;  some  holding  with  these  *  preachers,'  who  make  a 
show  as  though  they  sought  a  sincere  reformation  of  all 
things  according  to  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  yet  both  exe- 
cute a  false  ministry  themselves,  and  .  .  .  stand  under  that 
throne  of  Antichrist  (the  bishops,  their  courts  and  accom- 
plices, and  all  those  detestable  enormities)  which  they  should 
have  utterly  removed,  and  not  reformed.  And  these  are,  here- 
upon, called  Precisians,  or  'Puritans,'  and  now  lately  'Mar- 
tinists.'  The  other  side  are  the  '  Pontificals,'  that  in  all 
things  hold  and  jump  with  the  time,  and  are  ready  to  justi- 
fy whatever  is  or  shall  be  by  public  authority  established; 
and  with  these  hold  all  the  rabble  of  atheists,  dissembling 
papists,  cold  and  lukewarm  Protestants,  libertines,  dissolute, 
and  facinorous  persons,  and  such  as  have  no  knowledge  or 
fear  of  God."  These  opposite  parties  are  like  "  that  ancient 
sect  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees — the  one  in  preciseness, 
outward  show  of  holiness,  hypocrisy,  vain  glory,  covetous- 
ness,  resembling,  or  rather  exceeding  the  Pharisees;  the  oth- 
er, in  their  whole  religion  and  dissolute  conversation,  like 
unto  the  Sadducees,  looking  for  no  resurrection,  judgment,  or 
life  to  come — confessing  God  with  their  lips,  and  serving  him 
after  their  careless  manner,  but  denying  him  in  their  heart, 
yea,  openly  in  their  deeds,  as  their  whole  life  and  all  their 
works  declare." 

Such  vehemence  of  vituperation  was,  doubtless,  too  gener- 
ally characteristic  of  those  earliest  Separatists.  To  conceal 
this,  or  to  overlook  it,  would  be  inconsistent  with  the  truth 
of  history.  Greenwood,  and  others  like  him,  used  the  same 
violence  of  speech  concerning  their  adversaries — whom  they 
held  to  be  adversaries  of  truth — which  their  adversaries  used 
toward  them,  and  which  Luther  and  the  Reformers  used  con- 
cerning the  pope  and  the  upholders  of  his  power.     When  a 


126         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  VIL 

Separatist  confessor,  testifying  and  suffering  for  the  universal 
priesthood  of  Christ's  redeemed  ones,  and  for  their  right  to 
associate  in  free  and  self-governed  churches,  cries  out  of  his 
prison  against  Puritan  lecturers  in  the  Church  of  England, 
and  calls  them  "  these  Pharisee-sectary-teachers,"  "  these  sti- 
pendiary, roving  predicants,  that  have  no  certain  office  or 
place  assigned  them  in  their  church, but,  like  wandering  stars, 
remove  from  place  to  place  for  their  greatest  advantage  and 
best  entertainment,"  we  seem  to  hear  in  these  harsh  tones  a 
voice  like  that  of  Knox  or  of  Wycliffe. 

The  great  offense  of  those  whom  Giffard  insisted  on  call- 
ing "  Brownists,"  in  spite  of  their  disclaimer,  was  that  they 
disowned  the  National  Church,  and  withdrew  from  it.  Gif- 
fard had  said  of  them, "  They  can  not,  but  with  heresies  and 
most  heinous  injury  and  inordinate  dealing,  condemn  a  church 
as  quite  divorced  and  separate  from  Christ,  for  such  corrup- 
tions and  imperfections  in  God's  worship  as  be  not  funda- 
mental nor  destroy  the  substance."  Greenwood  replied, 
"  We  never  condemned  any  true  church  for  any  fault  what- 
soever, knowing  that  where  true  faith  is,  there  is  repentance, 
and  where  true  faith  and  repentance  are,  there  is  remission 
of  all  sins."  But  "for  their  idolatry,  confusion,  sacrilege, 
false  and  antichristian  ministry  and  government,  obstinacy  in 
all  these  sins,  hatred  of  the  truth,  and  persecution  of  Christ's 
servants,  we  have  proved  the  Church  of  England  not  to  be 
the  true,  but  the  malignant  church.  . . .  We  but  discover  their 
sins  and  show  their  estate  by  the  word  of  God,  refraining 
from  and  witnessing  against  their  abominations,  as  we  are 
commanded  by  that  voice  from  heaven,  'Go  out  of  her,  ray 
people,  that  ye  communicate  not  in  her  sins,  and  that  ye  re- 
ceive not  of  her  plagues.'  .  .  .  Let  her  shipmasters,  then,  her 
mariners,  merchantmen,  enchanters,  and  false  prophets,  utter 
and  retail  her  wares — deck  and  adorn  her  with  the  scarlet, 
purple,  gold,  silver,  jewels,  and  ornaments  of  the  true  taber- 
nacle ;  let  them,  in  her,  offer  up  their  sacrifices,  their  beasts, 
sheep,  meal,  wine,  oil,  their  odors,  ointments,  and  frankin- 


A.D.  1591.]         PURITANISM    AGAINST   SEPARATISM.  127 

cense ;  let  them  daub  and  undershore  her,  build  and  reform 
her  —  until  the  storm  of  the  Lord's  wrath  break  forth,  the 
morning  whereof  all  these  divines  shall  not  foresee  .  .  .  until 
the  wall  and  the  daubers  be  no  more.  But  let  the  wise,  that 
are  warned  and  see  the  evil,  fear  and  depart  from  the  same ; 
so  shall  they  preserve  their  own  souls  as  a  prey,  and  the 
Lord  shall  bring  them  among  his  redeemed  to  Zion  '  with 
praise,'  and  '  everlasting  joy '  shall  be  upon  their  heads;  'they 
shall  obtain  joy  and  gladness,  and  sorrow  and  sighing  shall 
flee  away.' " 

Another  reply  to  GiiFard  was  prepared  by  the  two  pris- 
oners, and  was  printed  (1591)  at  Middleburg,  in  Zealand. 
Barrowe's  part  of  it  purported  to  be,  "A  Plain  Refutation 
of  Mr.  Giffard's  Book,  intitled  'A  Short  Treatise  against  the 
Donatists  of  England :'  Wherein  is  discovered  the  Forgery 
of  the  whole  Ministry,  the  Confusion,  False  Worship,  and 
Antichristian  Disorder  of  these  Parish  Assemblies  called  'The 
Church  of  England.'  Here  also  is  prefixed,  A  Sum  of  the 
Causes  of  our  Separation,  and  of  our  Purposes  in  Practice." 
Greenwood's  contribution  to  the  volume  was,  "A  Brief  Ref- 
utation of  Mr.  Giflard's  supposed  consimilitude  betwixt  the 
Donatists  and  us :  Wherein  is  showed  how  his  arguments 
have  been  and  may  be,  by  the  PajDists,  more  justly  retorted 
against  himself  and  the  present  estate  of  their  church."  The 
"Epistle  Dedicatory  to  the  Right  Honorable  Peer  and  grave 
Counselor,"  Lord  Burleigh,  was  subscribed, "Henry  Barrowe 
and  John  Greenwood,  for  the  testimony  of  the  Gospel,  in 
close  prison."  In  that  dedication  of  their  work  to  perhaps 
the  only  member  of  the  queen's  government  whom  they 
could  reasonably  regard  as  a  possible  friend  and  protector, 
they  complained  of  the  hardships  they  had  suffered,  and  apol- 
ogized for  the  "bold  presumption"  of  defending  themselves 
and  the  truth,  for  which  they  were  God's  witnesses.  "  Our 
malignant  adversaries  have  had  full  scope  against  us,  with 
the  law  in  their  own  hands."  "  They  have  made  no  spare  or 
conscience  to  accuse,  blaspheme,  condemn,  and  punish  us." 


128         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  VII. 

"  Openly  in  their  pulpits  and  in  their  printed  books — to  the 
ears  and  eyes  of  all  men — they  have  pronounced  and  pub- 
lished us  as  '  damnable  heretics,  schismatics,  sectaries,  sedi- 
tious, disobedient  to  princes,  deniers  and  abridgers  of  their 
sacred  power.' "  "  No  trial  has  been  granted  us :  either  civ- 
il, that  we  might  know  for  what  cause  and  by  what  law  we 
thus  suffer  (which  yet  is  not  denied  the  most  horrible  male- 
factors and  offenders),  or  ecclesiastical,  by  the  word  of  God, 
where  place  of  freedom  might  be  given  us  to  declare  and 
plead  our  own  cause  in  sobriety  and  order."  "They  have 
shut  us  up,  now  more  than  three  years,  in  miserable  and  close 
prisons,  from  the  air,  and  from  all  means  so  much  as  to  write, 
ink  and  paper  being  taken  and  kept  from  us."  "  We  have 
been  rifled  from  time  to  time  of  all  our  papers  and  writings 
they  could  find."  "  While  we  were  thus  straitly  kept  and 
watched  from  speaking  or  writing,  they  suborned,  among 
sundry  others,  two  special  instruments — Mr.  Some  and  Mr. 
Giffard — to  accuse  and  blaspheme  us  publicly  to  the  view  of 
the  world,  the  one  laboring  to  prove  us  '  Anabaptists,'  the 
other  'Donatists.'"  "Wherefore  we  addressed  ourselves, 
by  such  means  as  the  Lord  administered,  and  as  the  in- 
commodities  of  the  place,  and  the  infirmities  of  our  decayed 
bodies  and  memories  would  permit,  to  our  defense ;  or, 
rather,  to  the  defense  of  that  truth  whereof  God  hath  made 
and  set  us  his  unworthy  witnesses." 

At  the  time  when  these  partners  in  testimony  and  in  suf- 
fering had  overcome  "  the  incommodities  of  the  place,"  and 
notwithstanding  the  vigilance  of  their  enemies  had  their 
book  ready  in  some  sort  for  the  printer,  and  when  their 
manuscripts  were  smuggled  "beyond  seas"  to  be  printed, 
Francis  Johnson  was  ministering  as  chaplain  to  the  English 
merchants  at  Middleburg,  being  supported  by  them  wdth  a 
commendable  liberality.  Like  most  of  the  English  clergy- 
men who  found  employment  of  that  sort  in  foreign  ports,  he 
was  an  advanced  Puritan,  zealous  not  only  against  super- 
stitious vestments  and  ceremonies,  but  against  the  govern- 


A.D.  1591.]         PURITANISM    AGAINST    SEPARATISM.  129 

ment  established  in  the  Chnrch  of  England.  At  the  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge,  two  years  before,  he  had  given  offense  to 
the  ruling  powers  by  a  sermon,  after  the  manner  of  Cart- 
wright,  maintaining  that  the  church  ought  to  be  governed 
by  teaching  and  ruling  elders,  and  implying  that  any  other 
government  in  the  church  is  unauthorized.  For  that  ser- 
mon lie  was  summoned  before  the  vice-chancellor  and  the 
heads  of  the  colleges,  and  was  by  their  authority  committed 
to  prison.  Being  required  to  make  a  public  recantation,  and 
refusing  to  make  it  in  the  terms  prescribed,  he  was  expelled 
from  the  university.  He  appealed  against  that  sentence,  and 
was  then  imprisoned  again  because  he  would  not  go  away 
till  his  case  had  been  decided.  The  result  was  that,  after  a 
twelvemonth  of  academic  agitation  between  the  Conformist 
and  Reformist  factions,  he  withdrew  from  Cambridge,  and 
we  next  -find  him  "  preacher  to  the  Company  of  English  of 
the  Staple  at  Middleburg,  in  Zealand."  The  fact  came  to  his 
knowledge  that  a  book  by  two  Separatists  so  notorious  and 
so  obnoxious  as  Barrowe  and  Greenwood  was  in  the  hands  of 
printers  there;  and,  as  a  loyal  though  Puritan  member  and 
minister  of  the  Church  of  England,  he  was  alarmed  at  the 
thought  of  how  much  harm  might  be  done  by  the  circulation 
of  that  book  in  England.  He  communicated  the  alarming- 
information  to  the  English  embassador,  and  was  employed 
to  "  intercept "  the  publication,  and  to  take  care  that  the 
edition  should  be  destroyed.  He  waited  till  the  last  sheets 
had  gone  through  the  press ;  and  then  he  executed  his  com- 
mission so  thoroughly  that  he  permitted  only  two  copies  to 
escape  the  fire — "  one  to  keep  in  his  own  study  that  he  might 
see  their  errors,  and  the  other  to  bestow  on  a  special  friend 
for  the  like  use."  So  the  great  labor  of  the  two  prisoners, 
amid  "continual  tossings  and  turmoils,  searches  and  riflings, 
and  with  no  peace  or  means  given  them  to  write  or  revise 
what  they  had  written,"  seemed  to  have  been  in  vain. 

Yet  it  was  not  entirely  labor  lost.    It  took  eflect  in  an  un- 
expected way,  first  on  the  overzealous  Puritan  who  had  "in- 

I 


130  GEXESIS    OF   THE    NEAV   ENGLAND   CHURCHES.       [CH.  VII. 

tercepted  "  and  destroyed  the  edition.  "  When  he  had  done 
this  work,  he  went  home,  and  being  set  down  in  his  study, 
he  began  to  turn  over  some  pages  of  this  book,  and  super- 
ficially to  read  some  things  here  and  there  as  his  fancy  led 
him.  At  length  he  met  with  something  that  began  to  work 
upon  his  spirit,  which  so  wrought  with  him  as  drew  him  to 
this  resolution,  seriously  to  read  over  the  whole  book ;  the 
which  he  did  once  and  again.  In  the  end  he  was  so  taken, 
and  his  conscience  was  troubled  so,  as  he  could  have  no  rest 
in  himself  until  he  crossed  the  seas  and  came  to  London  to 
confer  with  the  authors,  who  were  then  in  prison." 

Fourteen  years  later,  the  "intercepted"  book  was  reprinted 
at  Amsterdam.  Francis  Johnson,  banished  from  England  as 
a  Separatist,  had  become  the  pastor  of  a  banished  church 
which  had  found  a  refuge  in  that  city ;  and  there  "  he  caused 
the  same  books  which  he  had  been  an  instrument  to  burn,  to 
be  new  printed  and  set  out  at  his  own  charge."  ^ 

^  Hanburv,  i.,  89-70;  Bradford,  in  "Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims.''  424. 
425;  Strype,  "Annals,"  iii.,  pt.  ii.,  589-592;  App.,  267-2G9  ;  Book  ii., 
89-96. 


A.D.  1592.]  THE    MARTYK    CHUKCH.  131 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    MARTYR    CHURCH  I    THE    JAILS    AND   THE    GALLOWS. 

When  Francis  Johnson  returned  to  England  that  he 
might  confer  with  Barrowe  and  Greenwood  in  prison,  he 
conimitted  himself  to  the  cause  of  the  Separatists  in  London, 
and  shared  thenceforth  in  their  testimony  and  in  their  suffer- 
ings. They  could  not  but  be  encouraged  by  the  accession 
of  a  clergyman  who  had  lately  been  a  fellow  in  one  of  the 
colleges  at  Cambridge,  who  as  a  Puritan  had  suffered  im- 
prisonment and  loss  for  conscience'  sake,  and  who,  having 
been  as  zealous  as  Giffard  against  Separation,  had  given  up 
safety  and  a  comfortable  support  from  an  English  congrega- 
tion in  the  Netherlands  for  the  sake  of  helping  the  cause 
he  had  opposed.  Soon  after  his  coming  among  them,  they 
proceeded  to  institute,  under  his  leadership,  a  formal  organ- 
ization. 

Before  that  time  they  had  held  their  "secret  conventicles" 
or  prayer-meetings,  such  as  we  may  suppose  the  Lollards  to 
have  held  in  the  foregoing  ages.  By  the  government  they 
were  held  to  be  a  "  wicked  sect "  with  "  wicked  opinions," 
and,  to  detect  their  wickedness,  they  were  watched  as  if  they 
were  a  gang  of  thieves.  Some  of  them  were  subjected  to 
examination;  and  from  their  "confessions,"  together  with 
certain  pamphlets  of  the  time,  a  statement  was  drawn  up, 
by  the  queen's  attorney-general,  to  show  how  dangerous  a 
sect  they  were,  and  how  detestable  were  their  opinions.  The 
grave  annalist  of  the  Church  of  England,  writing  while  the 
facts  were  less  significant  than  they  now  are,  and  when 
passion  had  not  yet  cooled,  deemed  that  paper  so  important 
that  he  inserted  it  in  his  history ;  and  so  it  has  come  down 


132  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW   ENGLAND   CHUKCHES.       [CH.VIII. 

to  us.^  It  is  in  some  points  a  vivid  picture  of  the  people 
whom  the  govenniient  of  Queen  Elizabetli  thought  worthy 
of  persecution  as  criminals  dangerous  to  society.^  These 
were  some  of  their  nefarious  practices  : 

"  In  the  summer-time  they  meet  together  in  the  fields,  a 
mile  or  more  [from  London].  There  they  sit  down  upon  a 
bank,  and  divers  of  them  expound  out  of  the  Bible  as  long  as 
they  are  there  assembled. 

"In  the  winter-time  they  assemble  themselves  by  five  of 
the  clock  in  the  morning  to  the  house  where  they  make  their 
conventicle  for  the  Sabbath-day,  men  and  women  together. 
There  they  continue  in  their  kind  of  prayers  and  exposition 
of  Scriptures  all  the  day.  They  dine  together.  After  dinner 
[they]  make  collections  to  pay  for  their  diet.  And  what 
money  is  left,  some  one  of  them  carrieth  to  the  prisons  where 
any  of  their  sort  be  committed. 

"  In  their  prayers  one  speaketh,  and  the  rest  do  groan  and 
sob  and  sigh,  as  if  they  would  wring  out  tears,  but  say  not 
after  him  that  prayeth.     Their  prayer  is  extemporal. 

"  In  their  conventicles  they  use  not  the  Lord's  Prayer,  nor 
any  form  of  set  prayer.  For  the  Lord's  Prayer,  one  who 
hath  been  a  daily  resorter  to  their  conventicles  this  year  and 
a  half  on  the  Sabbath-days,  confesseth  that  he  never  heard  it 
said  among  them.  And  this  is  the  doctrine  of  the  use  of  it 
in  their  pamphlets :  To  that  which  is  alleged  that  we  ought 
to  say  the  Lord's  Prayer  because  our  Saviour  Christ  saith  : 
'  When  you  pray,  do  you  say  thus,'  we  answer  he  did  not  say, 
'Read  thus,'  or  'Pray  these  words;'  for  that  place  is  to  be 
otherwise  understood,  namely,  all  our  petitions  must  be  di- 
rected by  this  general  doctrine." 

"For  the  use  of  set  or  stinted  prayers,  as  they  term  it, 
this  they  teach :  That  all  stinted  prayers,  or  said  service,  is 

^  Strype,  "Annals,"  iii.,  pt.  ii.,  579-581. 

^  The  reader  can  hardly  fail  to  remember  Pliny's  famous  letTter  to  Trajan 
concerning  the  persecuted  Christians  in  Bithynia,  at  the  commencement  of 
the  second  century. 


A.D.  1592.]  THE    MARTYR   CHURCH.  133 

but  babbling  in  the  Lord's  sight,  and  hath  neither  promise 
of  blessing  nor  edification,  for  tiiat  they  are  but  cushions  for 
such  idle  23riests  and  atheists  as  have  not  the  Spirit  of  God. 
And  therefore  to  ofier  up  prayers  by  reading  or  by  writ 
unto  God  is  plain  idolatry. 

"  In  all  their  meetings  they  teach  that  there  is  no  head  or 
supreme  governor  of  the  church  of  God  but  Christ ;  and  that 
the  queen  hath  no  authority  to  appoint  ministers  in  the 
church,  nor  to  set  down  any  government  for  the  church, 
which  is  not  directly  commanded  in  God's  word. 

"To  confirm  their  private  conventicles  and  expounding 
there,  they  teach  that  a  private  man,  being  a  brother,  may 
preach  to  beget  faith ;  and,  now  that  the  office  of  the  apostles 
is  ceased,  there  needeth  not  public  ministers,  but  every  man 
in  his  own  calling  was  to  preach  the  Gospel. 

"  To  come  to  our  churches  in  England,  to  any  public  prayer 
or  preaching  of  whomsoever,  they  condemn  it  as  a  thing  un- 
lawful, for  that  they  say,  as  the  Church  of  England  stand- 
eth,  they  be  all  false  teachers  and  false  prophets  that  be  in 
it.  Their  reason  is,  for  that  our  preachers,  as  they  say,  do 
teach  us  that  the  state  of  the  realm  of  England  is  the  true 
church,  which  they  deny.  And  therefore  they  say  that  all 
preachers  of  [the  Church  of]  England  be  false  preachers  sent 
in  the  Lord's  anger  to  deceive  his  people  with  lies,  and  not 
true  preachers  to  bring  the  glad  tidings  of  the  Gospel.  And 
all  that  come  to  our  churches  to  public  prayers  or  sermons, 
they  account  damnable  souls. 

"  Concerning  the  authority  of  magistracy,  they  say  that 
our  preachers  teach  we  must  not  cast  our  pollutions  out  of 
the  church  until  the  magistrate  hath  disannulled  the  same ; 
which  they  say  is  contrary  to  the  doctrine  of  the  apostles, 
who  did  not  tarry  for  the  authority  of  the  magistrate." 
"And  therefore  our  preachers,  they  say,  be  false  prophets, 
for  that  we  ought  to  reform  without  the  magistrate  if  he 
be  slow,  for  that,  they  say,  the  primitive  church,  whose  ex- 
ample ought  to  be  our  wai-rant,  sued  not  to  the  courts  and 


134  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.      [CH.  YIII. 

parliaments,  nor  waited  upon  princes  for  their  reformation. 
When  the  stones  were  ready,  they  went  presently  forward 
with  their  building." 

Other  things  were  set  down  against  them.  They  abhor- 
red the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  as  "  full  of  errors  and  abom- 
inations." They  "  condemned  as  apostates  "  those  who,  hav- 
ing been  of  their  brotherhood,  had  fallen  aw-ay  from  them. 
They  even  inflicted  in  such  cases  a  solemn  censure  of  excom- 
munication. They  w^ould  not  have  their  children  baptized 
in  the  Church  of  England,  "  but  rather  chose  to  let  them  go 
unbaptized."  It  "  could  not  be  learned  where  they  received 
the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper,"  and  "  one  who  never 
missed  their  meeting-place  a  year  and  a  half  confesseth  that 
he  never  saw  any  ministration  of  the  sacrament,  nor  knovveth 
where  it  is  done."  Nor  did  they  marry  and  give  in  mar- 
riage according  to  the  ritual  of  the  Church  of  England — "if 
any  of  their  church  marry  together,  some  of  their  own  broth- 
erhood must  marry  them."^ 

At  the  time  when  that  statement  was  drawn  up,  the  Lon- 
don Separatists  had  not  quite  completed  their  organization 
as  a  church.  The  facts  that  they  had  among  them  no  cele- 
bration of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  that  they  chose  to  let  their 
children  go  unbaptized  rather  than  to  have  them  baptized 
by  a  parish  priest,  are  thus  exjjlained.  But  encouraged  by 
the  accession  of  Francis  Johnson,  and  confident  in  his  ability 
to  lead  them,  they  determined  to  become  a  completely  or- 
ganized church  according  to  the  rules  and  precedents  of  the 
New  Testament.  Cartwright,  the  great  Puritan,  had  said 
not  long  before  to  his  sister-in-law,  who  was  one  of  them, 
and  who  had  argued  that  the  Church  of  England  was  not  the 
church  of  Christ,  inasmuch  as  it  had  no  free  election  of  min- 
isters, "  If  for  this  want  we  be  not  of  the  church  of  Christ, 
how  much  more  are  you  not  of  that  church  who  have  no 
ministers  at  all,  and  no  election  at  all  ?"     He  added,  "  There 

*  Compare  what  Greenwood  said  in  his  examination,  p.  107. 


A.D.  1592.]  THE    MAKTYR    CHURCH.  135 

is  not  so  Diuch  as  one  among  you  that  is  fit  for  the  func- 
tion of  the  ministry  by  those  necessary  gifts  which  are  re- 
quired in  the  ministry  of  the  word."*  This  reproach  on  the 
London  Separatists  was  taken  away  when  a  Puritan  clergy- 
man so  well  known  as  Francis  Johnson  joined  himself  to 
them.  They  had  been  a  church,  and  had  so  regarded  them- 
selves, for  we  know  not  how  long  a  time,  each  member  at 
his  admission  entering  into  a  sacred  covenant  "  that  he  would 
walk  with  the  rest  of  the  congregation,  so  long  as  they  did 
walk  in  the  way  of  the  Lord,  and  as  far  as  might  be  war- 
ranted by  the  word  of  God ;"  but  as  yet  they  had  elected 
none  to  any  office.  It  was  evidently  their  belief  that  the 
church  makes  the  officer,  and  not  the  officer  the  church.  They 
had  been  acting  on  the  principle  afterward  defined  by  the 
fathers  of  New  England — "  There  may  be  the  essence  and 
being  of  a  church  without  any  officers ;"  and  now  they  were 
ready  to  act  on  the  co-ordinate  principle  (September,  1592), 
"Though  officers  be  not  absolutely  necessary  to  the  simple 
being  of  a  church,  yet  ordinarily  to  their  calling  they  are, 
and  to  their  well-being."  ^  Francis  Johnson,  of  whom  Brad- 
ford afterward  testified,  "  A  very  grave  man  he  was,  and  an 
able  teacher,  and  Avas  the  most  solemn  in  all  his  administra- 
tions that  we  have  seen,"^  was  chosen  pastor;  John  Green- 
wood, teacher;  Daniel  Studley  and  George  Kniston,  ruling 
elders ;  and  Christopher  Bowman  and  Nicholas  Lee,  deacons. 
With  what  formalities  those  brethren,  when  elected,  were 
inducted  into  their  offices,  does  not  appear  from  any  docu- 
ment that  has  come  down  to  us.  But  we  may  be  sure  of 
this:  They  held  that  "ordination  is  not  to  go  before,  but  to 
follow  election,"  and  is  only  "the  solemn  putting  a  man  into 
his  place  and  office  whereunto  he  had  right  before  by  elec- 
tion, being  like  the  installing  of  a  magistrate  in  the  common- 

'  Waddington,  "John  Penry,"  p.  85,  8G. 
2  "Cambridge  Platform,"  ch.  vi,,  §  1,  2. 

^Bradford's   "Dialogue,"  in  Young"&  ''Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,"  p. 
415. 


136  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.      [CH.VIII. 

wealth."^  iSTor  could  they  have  been  so  forgetful  of  their 
own  principles  as  to  dream  for  a  moment  that  the  imposition 
of  prelatical  hands,  by  which  Johnson  and  Greenwood  had 
formerly  been  introduced  into  the  national  priesthood,  was 
a  reason  for  not  ordaining  them  to  their  offices  of  pastor  and 
teacher.  Doubtless  there  was  solemn  prayer,  devoting  and 
commending  them  to  God.  Probably  they  were  "  set  apart " 
by  "the  laying  on  of  the  hands "^  \e7ri^e(ng  rh)v  x^'P'^*']  ^^ 
brethren  deputed  by  the  church  to  perform  that  service. 
Yet  it  may  be  that  the  lifting  np  of  the  hands  of  the  church^ 
[^EipoTori^tTavTEo]  was  deemed  a  sufficient  ordination.  The 
persecuted  church  had  its  four  "bishops"  and  its  two  "dea- 
cons." 

Then,  for  the  first  time  in  that  church,  there  w^as  the  ad- 
ministration of  baptism.  Seven  children,  "being  of  several 
vears  of  age,"  were  presented,  "but  they  had  neither  godfa- 
thers nor  godmothers."  The  pastor  "  took  water  and  wash- 
ed the  faces  of  them  that  were  baptized,"  "  saying  only  .  .  . 
'  I  do  baptize  thee  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son, 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,'  without  using  any  other  ceremony." 
Then,  too,  having:  their  own  official  ministers  of  the  word, 
they  could  orderly  celebrate  the  Lord's  Supper.  It  was 
with  strict  adherence  to  the  precedents  recorded  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  therefore  with  the  utmost  simplicity  of  cere- 
monial, that  they  "broke  bread"  in  remembrance  of  Christ. 
"  Five  white  loaves,  or  more,  were  set  upon  the  table.  The 
pastor  did  break  the  bread,  and  then  delivered  it  to  some 
of  them,  and  the  deacons  delivered  to  the  rest,  some  of  the 
congregation  sitting  and  some  standing  about  the  table. 
The  pastor  delivered  the  cup  unto  one,  and  he  to  another, 

'  "Cambridge  Platform."  ch.  ix.,  §  2. 

2  1  Tim.  iv.,  13  ;  2  Tim.  i.,  6  ;  Heb.  vi.,  2. 

3  Acts  xiv.,  23;  2  Cor.  viii.,  U).  Some  cTiurches  in  England  (if  I  am 
rightly  informed)  ordain  their  ministers  only  by  "the  lifting  up  of  hands." 
So  eminent  a  minister  as  Robert  Hall,  whose  name  is  among  the  treasures 
of  the  universal  church  of  Christ,  received  no  other  ordination. 


A.D.  1592.]  THE    MARTYR    CHURCH.  137 

till  they  all  had  drunken."  At  the  delivery  of  the  bread 
and  the  cnp  he  used  the  words  of  Christ  set  down  by  the 
apostle  Paul,  "Take,  eat;  this  is  my  body  w^hich  is  broken 
for  you:  this  do  in  remembrance  of  me ;"  and,  "This  cup  is 
the  new  testament  in  my  blood :  this  do  ye,  as  oft  as  ye 
drink  it,  in  remembrance  of  me."  Nor  could  he  fail  to  add, 
"As  often  as  ye  eat  this  bread  and  drink  this  cup,  ye  do 
show  the  Lord's  death  till  he  come."i  In  no  English  cathe- 
dral w^as  our  Lord's  memorial  supper  celebrated  more  fitly, 
or  more  impressively,  than  in  that  humble  conventicle,  "  when 
the  doors  were  shut,  w^here  the  disciples  were  assembled,  for 
fear  of  the"  High  Commission. 

How  it  happened  that  Greenwood,  the  piisoner,  was  pres- 
ent when  the  church  completed  its  organization — if,  indeed, 
lie  were  present — does  not  appear.  It  may  be  that  he  was 
there  by  the  connivance  of  the  jailer  who  was  responsible 
for  his  safe-keeping.2  It  may  be  that,  though  absent  and  in 
prison,  he  was  chosen  teacher  in  the  hope  that  he  would  soon 
l)e  at  liberty.  Or  it  may  be  that  the  church,  in  choosing  its 
pastor  and  teacher,  remembered  them  that  were  in  bonds,  as 
bound  witli  them,  and  that  for  that  reason  Greenwood, 
though  a  prisoner,  was  chosen  to  be  one  of  the  ministers. 
The  number  of  Separatists  in  the  prisons  of  London  was  so 
considerable,  that  not  far  from  that  time  they  made  a  formal 
])etition  to  Lord  Burleigh,  beseeching  him  to  procure  for 
them  a  "  speedy  trial  together,  or  some  free  Christian  confer- 
ence ;"  or  that  they  might  be  "  bailed  according  to  law ;"  or, 
if  such  favors  could  not  be  granted  to  them,  that  they  might 
be  collected  into  one  prison,  "wdiere  they  might  be  together 
for  mutual  help  and  comfort."  That  petition  was  subscribed 
by  fifty-nine  prisoners  (including  Barrowe  and  Greenwood), 
and  the  names  of  ten  more  who  had  already  died  in  prison 

1  1  Cor.  xii.,  24-26. 

'  Some  instances  of  such  kindness  on  the  part  of  jailers  toward  ministers 
imprisoned  for  the  Gospel's  sake  are  well  authenticated.  Waddington's 
"Penry,"p.l2(;,  2r>4. 


138        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CU.  VIII. 

were  appended.^  If  the  survivors  could  have  been  brought 
together  in  one  prison,  Greenwood  being  one  of  them,  there 
would  have  been  an  obvious  division  of  labor  between  the 
pastor  and  the  teacher — one  ministering  to  the  imprisoned 
portion  of  the  church,  the  other  laboring  in  word  and  doc- 
trine among  those  who  had  not  yet  been  cast  into  prison. 

The  proceedings  which  have  just  been  described  seem  to 
have  been  followed  by  a  more  vigorous  persecution  of  the 
Separatists.  In  the  estimation  of  those  who  then  governed 
England,  such  proceedings — the  voluntary  association  of  be- 
lievers in  a  church,  their  election  of  bishops  and  deacons  ac- 
cording to  precedents  in  the  apostolic  age,  and  their  ad- 
ministration of  Christian  sacraments,  all  in  disregard  of  the 
queen's  ecclesiastical  supremacy  and  of  the  Act  of  Uniform- 
ity— were  atrocious,  and  not  to  be  borne.  The  petition  to 
the  lord  high  treasurer  brought  no  relief  to  the  prisoners ;  or, 
if  it  had  any  effect,  its  effect  w^as  an  increase  of  their  suffer- 
ings. Another  memorial,  not  long  afterward,  was  addressed 
to  the  "lords  of  the  council,"  and  was  a  more  elaborate  and 
ample  statement  of  their  case.  That  paper,  entitled  "The 
humble  supplication  of  the  faithful  servants  of  the  church  of 
Christ,  in  the  behalf  of  their  ministers  and  preachers  impris- 
oned," may  be  taken  as  a  formal  manifesto  from  the  church, 
setting  forth,  officially,  the  issue  between  the  persecuted  and 
the  persecutors. 

After  courteous  expressions  of  respect,  the  petitioners,  in 
the  first  and  comprehensive  statement  of  their  grievance,  took 
occasion  to  affirm  their  innocence  and  their  loyalty  to  the 
queen.  "  We  are,"  said  they,"  her. majesty's  poor,  oppressed 
subjects,"  "  whose  entire  faith  unto  God,  loyalty  to  our  sov- 
ereign, obedience  to  our  governors,  reverence  to  our  supe- 
riors, innocency  in  all  good  conversation  toward  all  men,  call 
not  avail  us  for  the  safety  of  our  lives,  liberty,  or  goods — 
not  even  by  her  highness's  royal  laws,  and  the  public  char- 

1  Strype,  iv.,  91-93. 


A.D.  1592.]  THE    MARTYR    CHURCH.  139 

ter  of  this  land — from  the  violence  and  invasion  of  our  ad- 
versaries, her  majesty's  subjects." 

They  proceeded  by  referring  to  the  fact  that  the  queen,  as 
a  Protestant  sovereign,  had  not  only  permitted  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Bible,  but  had  *'  exhorted  all  her  subjects  to  the 
diligent  readhig  and  sincere  obedience  thereof."  By  such 
use  of  the  Scriptures,  "  we,"  said  they,  "  upon  due  examina- 
tion and  assured  proof,  find  the  whole  public  ministry,  minis- 
tration, worship,  government,  ordinances,  and  proceedings  ec- 
clesiastical of  this  land,  to  be  strange  and  quite  dissenting 
from  the  rule  of  Christ's  Testament ;  not  to  belong  unto,  or 
to  have  any  place  or  use,  or  so  much  as  mention  in  his  church ; 
but  rather  to  belong  unto,  and  to  be  derived  from,  the  ma- 
lignant synagogue  of  Antichrist,  being  the  selfsame  that  the 
pope  used  and  left  in  this  land ;"  wherefore  "  we  dare  not  by 
any  means  defile  or  subject  ourselves  in  any  outward  sub- 
jection or  inward  consent  thereunto."  Their  withdrawal 
from  all  communion  with  the  ecclesiastical  establishment  was 
to  them  a  conscientious  necessity. 

But  they  had  not  simply  withdrawn  from  the  parish  church- 
es. They  had  done  what  the  primate  and  the  High  Com- 
mission regarded  as  a  much  greater  sin.  "  We,"  said  they, 
"by  the  Holy  Scriptures,  find  God's  absolute  commandment 
that  all  which  hear  and  believe  the  Gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  should  forthwith  thereupon  forsake  their  evil  walk, 
and  from  thenceforth  walk  in  Christ's  holy  faith  and  order, 
together  with  his  faithful  servants,  subjecting  themselves  to 
the  ministry,  and  those  holy  laws  and  ordinances  which  the 
Lord  Jesus  hath  appointed,  and  whereby  only  he  is  present 
and  reigneth  in  his  church.  Wherefore,  both  for  the  enjoy- 
ing of  that  inestimable  comfort  of  his  joyful  presence  and 
protection,  and  to  show  our  obedience  to  God's  holy  com- 
mandment, we  have,  in  his  reverent  fear  and  love,  joined  our- 
selves together  in  that  Christian  faith,  order,  and  communion 
prescribed  in  his  word,  and  [have]  subjected  our  souls  and 
bodies  to  those  holy  laws  and  ordinances  which  the  Son  of 


140        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  VIII. 

God  hath  instituted,  and  whereby  he  is  present  and  ruleth 
his  church  here  beneath ;  and  [we]  have  chosen  to  ourselves 
such  a  ministry  of  pastor,  teacher,  elders,  deacons,  as  Clirist 
hath  given  to  his  church  here  on  earth  to  the  world's  end." 
In  this  organized  fellowship,  "  notwithstanding  any  prohibi- 
tion of  men,  or  what  by  men  can  be  done  unto  us,"  we  ex- 
pect "  the  promised  assistance  of  God's  grace,"  which  will  en- 
able us  "  to  worship  him  aright,  and  to  frame  all  our  pro- 
ceedings according  to  the  prescript  of  his  word,  and  to  lead 
our  lives  in  holiness  and  righteousness  before  him,  in  all  du- 
tiful obedience  and  humble  subjection  to  our  magistrates  and 
governors  set  over  us  by  the  Lord." 

They  professed  themselves  ready  to  prove  against  all  men 
that  their  proceedings  were  "  warrantable  by  the  word  of 
God,  allowable  by  her  majesty's  laws,  noways  prejudicial  to 
her  sovereign  power,  or  offensive  to  the  public  peace  of  the 
state."  At  the  same  time,  they  affirmed  that  the  only  adver- 
saries against  whom  they  had  any  special  complaint  were 
the  clergy — "  the  officers  of  Antichrist's  kingdom — namely, 
the  Romish  prelacy  and  priesthood  left  in  the  land."  The 
persecution  which  they  suffered  was  carried  on  in  the  name, 
not  of  the  state,  but  of  the  church,  and  the  particulars  of  their 
complaint  to  "the  lords  of  the  council,"  against  that  "resid- 
uary Romish  prelacy  and  priesthood,"  were  such  as  these : 

"  Their  dealing  with  ns  is,  and  hath  been  a  long  time,  most 
injurious,  outrageous,  and  unlawful, by  the  great  power  and 
high  authority  they  have  gotten  in  their  hands,  and  usurped 
above  all  the  public  courts,  judges,  laws,  and  charters  of  this 
land  ;  persecuting,  imprisoning,  detaining  at  their  pleasures 
our  poor  bodies,  without  any  trial,  release,  or  bail  permitted 
yet ;  and,  hitherto,  without  any  cause  either  for  error  or 
crime  directly  objected."  "  Some  of  us  they  have  now 
more  than  five  years  in  prison  (158V-92);  yea,  four  of  these 
five  years  in  close  prison,  with  miserable  usage,  as  Henry 
Barrowe  and  John  Greenwood,  at  this  present  in  the  Fleet. 
Others  they  have  cast  into  their  limbo  of  Newgate,  laden 


A.D.  1592.]  THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JAILS.  141 

with  as  many  irons  as  they  could  bear;  others  into  the  dan- 
gerous and  loathsome  jail,  among  the  most  facinorous  and 
vile  persons — where  it  is  lamentable  to  relate  how  many  of 
these  innocents  have  perished  within  these  five  years,  and 
of  these,  some  aged  widows,  aged  men,  and  young  maidens — 
and  where  so  many  as  the  infection^  hath  spared  shall  lie  in 
woeful  distress,  like  to  follow  their  fellows  if  speedy  redress 
be  not  had.  Others  of  us  have  been  grievously  beaten  with 
cudgels  in  the  prison,  as  at  Bridewell,  and  cast  into  a  place 
called  'Little-ease'  there,  for  refusing  to  come  to  their  chap- 
el service  there ;  in  which  prison  they,  and  others  of  us  not 
long  after,  ended  their  lives.  Upon  none  of  us  thus  commit- 
ted by  them,  dying  in  their  prison,  is  any  search  or  inquest 
suffered  to  pass,  as  by  law  in  like  case  is  provided."^ 

The  "humble  supplication"  had  other  details  for  her  maj- 
esty's council.  "  Their  manner  of  pursuing  and  apprehend- 
ing us,"  said  the  petitioners,  "is  with  no  less  violence  and 
outrage.  Their  pursuivants,  with  assistants,  break  into  our 
houses  at  all  hours  of  the  night.  .  .  .  There  they  break  up, 
ransack,  rifle,  and  make  havoc  at  their  pleasure,  under  pre- 
tense of  searching  for  seditious  and  unlawful  books.      The 

^  The  "jail  fever,"  so  common  at  that  time,  and  long  afterward,  in  the 
English  prisons.     See  Hopkins,  iii.,  487-490. 

2  The  significance  of  this  fact  should  be  remembered.  English  law  re- 
quired, in  cases  of  that  kind,  a  coroner's  inquest.  But  a  jury,  inquiring  into 
the  death  of  an  "aged  widow,"  or  an  "aged  man,"  or  a  "young  maiden," 
dead  in  Bridewell,  might  give  a  censorious  verdict,  and  miglit  express  and 
stimulate  the  indignation  which  pitying  souls  could  not  but  feel  at  such  cru- 
elties. The  traditional  jealousy  of  the  people  against  punishments  inflicted 
by  church  courts  might  break  out,  and  the  verdict  of  a  coroner's  jury  miglit 
bring  on  a  conflict  between  the  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  and  the  courts 
of  common  law.  The  genius  and  methods  of  the  English  common  law  are 
more  favorable  to  individual  liberty  than  the  genius  and  methods  of  the  can- 
on or  of  the  civil  law.  The  Separatists  believed  that  the  common  law,  ftiir- 
ly  applied  and  executed,  would  protect  them.  It  was  natural,  therefore, 
for  them,  whenever  one  of  their  number  perished  in  prison,  to  desire  a  cor- 
oner's inquest ;  and  it  is  easy  to  see  why  they  could  not  have  it. 


142         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.VIII. 

liusbands,  in  the  deep  of  the  night,  they  have  plucked  out  of 
bed  from  their  wives  and  haled  them  unjustly  to  prison." 
"  About  a  month  since  their  pursuivants,  late  in  the  night,  en- 
tered, in  the  queen's  name,  into  an  honest  citizen's  house  on 
Ludgate  Hill,  where,  after  they  had  at  their  pleasure  search- 
ed and  ransacked  . . .  the  house,  they  apprehended  two  of  our 
ministers — Francis  Johnson,  without  any  warrant  at  all,  and 
John  Greenwood^ — both  whom,  between  one  and  two  of  the 
clock  after  midnight,  they,  with  bills  and  staves,  led  to"  pris- 
on, "  taking  assurance  of  Edward  Boys,  the  owner  of  this 
house,  to  be  true  prisoner  in  his  own  house  until  the  next 
day,"  "at  which  time  the  archbishop,  with  certain  doctors, 
his  associates,  committed  them  all  three  to  close  prison,  two 
unto  the  Clink,  the  third  again  to  the  Fleet,  where  they  re- 
main in  great  distress." 

Some  additional  instances  of  arrest,  still  more  recent,  hav- 
ing been  mentioned,  the  petitioners  proceeded  to  complain 
of  the  "secret  drifts  and  open  practices  wherebj^"  their  ad- 
versaries, the  bishops,  were  seeking  to  draw  them  "into 
danger  and  hatred."  Especially  were  they  aggrieved  by  the 
polemic  trick  of  "defaming  and  divulging"  them  "as  Ana- 
baptists"— "asDonatists  and  schismatics" — as  "seditious" — 
and  "  as  abridgers  and  encroachers  upon  the  royal  power  of 
the  queen."  Against  the  calumny  that  they  were  disloyal 
to  their  sovereign,  they  made  their  protest :  "  We  from  our 
hearts  acknowledge  her  sovereign  power,  under  God,  over  all 
persons,  causes,  and  actions,  civil  or  ecclesiastical.  .  .  .  We 
gladly  obey,  and  never  willingly  break  any  of  her  godly  laws. 

^  The  mention  of  Johnson,  as  taken  by  the  pursuivants  (the  "familiars" 
of  the  Enghsh  Inquisition)  "without  any  warrant  at  all,"  implies  a  distinc- 
tion in  that  respect  between  his  case  and  Greenwood's,  whom  the  petitioners 
had  just  mentioned  as  having  been  "four  years  in  close  prison,"  It  may  be 
supposed  that  at  the  time,  "about  a  month  since,"  when  the  two  ministers 
were  "apprehended,"  and  "with  bills  and  staves  led  to  prison,"  Green- 
wood had  been  permitted,  by  the  connivance  of  a  friendly  jailer,  to  go  abroad 
for  an  evening,  under  the  watch,  perhaps,  of  a  responsible  attendant. 


A.D.  1592.]  THE    CHFRCH    AND   THE    JAILS.  143 

.  .  .  We  never  attempted,  either  secretly  or  openly,  of  our- 
selves, to  suppress  or  innovate  any  thing,  how  enormous  so- 
ever, by  public  authority  established;  patiently  suffering 
whatsoever  the  arm  of  injustice  shall  do  unto  us  for  the 
same;  doing  such  things  as  Christ  hath  commanded  us  in 
his  holy  worship ;  but  always  leaving  the  reformation  of  the 
state  to  those  that  God  hath  set  to  govern  the  state." 

The  simplicity  of  their  confidence  in  the  truth  for  which 
they  were  in  prison,  and  in  their  ability  to  make  the  truth 
appear  if  they  could  be  heard,  is  even  pathetic.  "  We  can 
but,  in  all  humble  manner,  beseech,  offer,  and  commit  our 
cause  and  whole  proceedings  to  be  tried  by  the  Scriptures 
of  God,  with  any  that  <!s  of  contrary  judgment,  before  your 
honorable  presence."  "We  confidently  undertake  both  to 
disprove  their  public  ministry,  ministration,  worship,  govern- 
ment, and  proceedings  ecclesiastical,  established  (as  they 
vaunt)  in  this  land,  and  also  to  approve  our  own  present 
course  and  practice  by  such  evidence  of  Scripture  as  our  ad- 
versaries shall  not  be  able  to  withstand ;  protesting,  if  we 
fail  herein,  not  only  willingly  to  sustain  such  deserved  pun- 
ishment as  shall  be  inflicted  upon  us  for  our  disorder  and 
temerity,  but  also  to  become  conformable  to  their  line  and 
proceedings  if  we  overthrow  not  them — we  will  not  say,  if 
they  overcome  us."  To  that  offer  or  challenge  they  appended 
a  modest  suggestion  of  the  serious  responsibility  which  the 
"lords  of  the  council"  would  incur  by  denying  or  any  longer 
deferring  "  this  Christian  and  peaceable  course." 

In  the  mean  time — till  their  cause  should  be  decided  after 
such  a  hearing — they  made  petition,  in  the  name  of  God  and 
of  the  queen,  that  "for  the  present  safety  of  their  lives"  they 
might  have  "the  benefit  and  help  of  her  majesty's  laws  and 
of  the  public  charter  of  the  land — namely"  (in  their  own 
words),  "that  we  may  be  received  unto  bail,  until  we  be  by 
order  of  law  convict  of  some  crime  deserving  bands.  ...  It 
standeth  not  with  your  honorable  estimation  and  justice  to 
suffer  us  to  be  thus  oppressed  and  punished — yea,  thus  to 


144         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCIIES.       [CH.VIII. 

perish — before  trial  and  judgment,  especially  imploring  and 
crying  out  to  you  for  the  same. .  .  .  However,  we  here  take  the 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  his  angels,  together  with  your 
own  consciences,  and  all  present  in  all  ages  to  whom  this  our 
supplication  may  come,  to  witness  that  we  have  here  truly 
advertised  your  honors  of  our  case  and  usage,  and  have  in 
all  humility  offered  our  cause  to  Christian  trial." ^ 

This  was  not  the  first  memorial,  nor  the  last,  addressed  to 
her  majesty's  council  by  "  the  persecuted  church  and  serv- 
ants of  Christ  called  Brownists."  An  earlier  "  supplication," 
more  vehement  in  its  tone,  alleged  that  those  "sworn  and 
most  treacherous  enemies  of  God,"  "the  prelates  of  this  land 
and  their  complices,"  were  then  "detaining  in  their  hands 
within  the  prisons  about  London — not  to  speak  of  other  jails 
throughout  the  land — about  threescore  and  twelve  persons, 
men  and  women,  young  and  old,  lying  in  cold,  in  hunger,  in 
dungeons,  in  irons,"  for  no  other  offense  than  that  of  going 
beyond  other  English  Protestants  "  in  the  detestation  of  all 
popery,  that  most  fearful  antichristian  religion,"  and  "  draw- 
ing nearer  in  some  points  of  practice  unto  Christ's  holy  order 
and  institution."  "Of  which  number  they  have  taken,  the 
Lord's  day  last  past,  .  .  .  some  fifty-six  persons,  hearing  the 
word  of  God  truly  taught,  praying,  and  praising  God  for  all 
his  favors  showed  unto  us,  and  unto  her  majesty,  your  hon- 
ors, and  the  whole  land,  and  desiring  our  God  to  be  merciful 
unto  us,  and  to  our  gracious  princess  and  country."  The 
persons  taken  were  "  employed  in  these  holy  actions,  and  no 
other,  as  the  parties  who  disturbed  us  can  testify."  It  is 
mentioned  as  a  significant  circumstance  that  "  they  were 
taken  in  the  very  same  place  where  the  persecuted  church 
and  martyrs  were  enforced  to  use  the  like  exercise  in  Queen 

^  Strype,  "Annals,"  iv.,  94-98.  This  supplication,  as  given  by  Strype, 
is  without  date;  but  it  is  believed  to  have  been  written  in  January,  loO.'i. 
Dr.  Waddington  ("  Penry,"  p.  105)  mentions  December  T),  ir)y2,  as  the  time 
wlien  Johnson  and  Greenwood  were  apprehended  at  the  house  of  Edward 
Boys,  which,  the  petitioners  say,  Avas  "about  a  month  since." 


A.D.  1592.]  THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JAILS.  145 

Mary's  clays  ;"  and  the  petitioners  affirm  for  tliemselves,  "We 
have  as  good  a  warrant  to  reject  the  ordinances  of  Anti- 
christ, and  labor  for  the  recovery  of  Christ's  holy  ordinances, 
as  our  fathers  in  Queen  Mary's  days,"  only  a  little  more  than 
thirty  years  ago.  They  complain  that  the  prelates  have  com- 
mitted those  "  threescore  and  twelve  persons"  into  close  con- 
finement, "  purposing,  belike,  to  imprison  them  unto  death,  as 
they  have  done  seventeen  or  eighteen  others,  in  the  same 
noisome  jails,  within  these  six  years."  "  Bishop  Bonner, 
Story, Weston" — the  persecutors  under  Mary — "dealt  not 
after  this  sort ;  for  those  whom  they  committed  close,  they 
brought  them,  in  short  space,  openly  into  Smithfield,  to  end 
their  misery  and  to  begin  their  never-ending  joy ;  whereas 
Bishop  Aylmer,  Dr.  Stanhope,  and  Mr.  Justice  Young,  with 
the  rest  of  that  persecuting  and  blood-thirsty  faculty,  will  do 
neither  of  these." 

In  the  conclusion  of  their  supplication,  they  said;  "We 
crave  for  all  of  us  but  liberty  either  to  die  openly,  or  to  live 
openly,  in  the  land  of  our  nativity.  If  we  deserve  death,  it 
beseemeth  the  magistrates  of  justice  not  to  see  us  closely 
murdered  ;  if  we  be  guiltless,  w^e  crave  but  the  benefit  of  our 
innocency,  that  we  may  have  peace  to  serve  God  and  our 
prince  in  the  place  and  sepulchres  of  our  fathers.  Thus  pro- 
testing our  innocency,  complaining  of  violence  and  wrong, 
and  crying  for  justice  on  the  behalf  and  in  the  name  of  that 
righteous  Judge,  the  God  of  equity  and  justice,  we  continue 
our  prayers  unto  him  for  her  majesty  and  your  honors."  ^ 

There  was  also  a  later  memorial,  written  by  another  hand, 
less  vehement  in  style  than  either  of  its  predecessors,  but 
stating  the  case  of  the  persecuted  church  with  a  more  con- 
vincing clearness.  It  began  with  "  a  brief  declaration  of  our 
faith  and  loyalty  to  her  majesty,"  in  ten  particulars ;  and 
nothing  more  explicit  in  the  way  of  profession  could  be  rea- 

^  Hanbury,  i.,  88-90.  The  date  of  this  document  is  incidentally  indicated 
by  a  reference  in  it  to  "the  Lord's  day  last  past,  being  the  third  of  the  fourtli 
month  [June],  1592." 

K 


146        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEAV    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.  VIII. 

sonably  demanded.  It  made  "  short  answers  unto  two  ru- 
mors given  out  against  us  :"  first,  "  the  rumor  that  we  differ 
from  all  the  land  in  some  opinions,  gainsaying  not  only  the 
bishops  and  whole  clergy,  but  the  magistrates  and  all  the 
whole  land  ;"  and,  secondly,  "  the  rumor  that  we  are  heretic, 
schismatic,  holding  most  ungodly  opinions."  As  for  the  first 
of  those  rumors,  while  they  profess  "  reverence  in  thought 
and  deed"  for  the  magistrates,  they  say  frankly,  "  Indeed,  we 
dissent  from  all  our  nation  in  some  doctrines  concerning  the 
true  worship,  offices,  and  government  of  God  in  his  church;" 
but  they  protested  against  the  conclusion  that "  therefore  no 
prison  is  too  vile,  nor  any  punishment  too  grievous"  for  them. 
"Seeing  we  have  thus  laid  open  our  faith  and  loyalty  to  God, 
our  queen,  and  our  country,  is  there  no  more  favor  and  credit 
due  to  us  than  to  languish  away  in  prisons  without  bail  or 
trial  ?"  To  the  second,  they  answered,  "  Right  honorable, 
this  rumor  is  false.  In  error  it  may  be  that  we  are,  .  .  .  but 
heretic  or  schismatic  none  can  prove  us."  In  this  memorial, 
as  in  the  others,  their  petitionr  was  that  they  might  have  a 
speedy  trial  according  to  law,  or  "  be  bailed  out  of  those 
noisome  prisons"  upon  adequate  security  for  their  appearance 
to  answer  whatever  charges  might  be  preferred  against  them. 
These  petitions  seem  reasonable  to  us  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  But  there  was  one  comprehensive  and  (as  the  lords 
of  the  council  thought)  all-sufficient  reason  for  disregarding 
them.  In  the  judgment  of  Burleigh,  as  well  as  ofWhitgift, 
the  petitioners  w^ere  obstinate  men,  who  might  at  any  time 
obtain  their  liberty  by  promising  conformity  and  submission 
to  the  ecclesiastical  laws,  and  renouncing  their  pretended 
right  of  instituting  voluntary  churches  according  to  apostol- 
ical principles  and  precedents.  It  seemed  altogether  reason- 
able that  such  men  should  lie  perishing  in  prison,  and  that 
all  the  civil  rights  of  English  subjects,  guaranteed  by  the 
great  charter,  should  be  broken  down  for  the  sake  of  keeping 
them  there;  for  there  was  danger  that  others  might  be  in- 
fected with  the  same  preposterous  notions  of  religious  liberty 


A.D.  1592.]  THE    MARTYR    CHURCH.  147 

overtopping  the  queen's  supremacy  in  all  affairs  of  religion. 
How  unreasonable  was  it  in  these  men  that  they  would  not 
be  contented  and  quiet,  but  were  importuning  the  council 
with  their  petitions! 

It  was  evident  that  the  Separatists  were  not  to  be  subdued 
without  some  greater  severity.  Men  who  had  shown  that, 
when  imprisoned  for  their  opinions,  they  could  not  be  hin- 
dered by  their  keepers  from  writing  and  in  some  way  pub- 
lishing books  against  the  deepest  foundation  of  the  queen's 
ecclesiastical  establishment  —  men  who  would  pray  and 
preach  even  in  the  jails  in  which  they  were  confined  for  that 
identical  offense  of  praying  and  preaching — were  dangerous 
to  the  entire  system  of  church  government  which  Elizabeth 
had  set  up  in  England,  and  was  determined  to  maintain. 
Neither  the  High  Commission  nor  the  Privy  Council,  neither 
the  primate  nor  the  queen,  could  tell  whereunto  this  would 
grow.  The  spirit  of  John  Wycliffe  was  abroad  again.  The 
Lollards  and  Gospelers,  whom  centuries  of  persecution  un- 
der the  papacy  had  not  been  able  to  exterminate,  and  who 
had  fallen  in  for  a  while  with  the  general  movement  of  the 
nation  revolting  against  Rome,  were  reappearing  under  a 
new  name,  with  more  advanced  ideas,  and  were  resuming 
their  old  relations  to  the  government,  because  the  Reforma- 
tion, as  managed  by  the  government,  had  not  been  what 
they  expected.  Either  the  principle  must  be  surrendered 
by  which  the  Church  of  England  had  been  reformed  from  a 
dependence  on  the  pope  to  a  dependence  on  the  queen — the 
great  principle  that  all  Englishmen  were  to  believe  and  wor- 
ship according  to  the  dictation  of  Elizabeth  Tudor — or  some 
effective  measures  must  be  taken  to  check  the  progress  of 
the  Separation. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  all  the  persecution  which 
these  men — Barrowe,  Greenwood,  and  their  brethren — had 
been  suffering,  was  purely  ecclesiastical.  The  secular  gov- 
ernment of  England,  as  secular^  had  taken  no  part  in  it. 
Whatever  penalties  were  inflicted  for  violations  of  the  Act 


148  GENESIS    OF  THE   NEAV   ENGLAND   CHURCHES.      [CH.  VIII. 

of  Uniformity  were  inflicted  in  the  administration  of  church 
government.  There  was,  indeed,  an  Act  of  Parliament  recog- 
nizing the  queen's  supremacy  in  the  church  and  incorporat- 
ing that  idea  into  the  laws  of  England  ;  but  the  High  Com- 
mission Courts  authorized  by  that  act  were  courts  in  which 
the  queen's  "  commissioners  for  causes  ecclesiastical "  made 
inquisition  by  ecclesiastical  methods.  It  was  by  the  minis- 
try of  those  commissioners  that  the  supreme  ruler  of  the 
Church  of  England  exercised  "  the  full  power,  authority, 
jurisdiction,  and  supremacy  in  church  causes  which  hereto- 
fore the  popes  usurped  and  took  to  themselves."  * 

All  that  the  Separatists  were  suff'ering  was  nothing  but 
church  government  by  church  ofiicers ;  and  therefore  they 
demanded  so  importunately  that  the  law  of  the  state,  and 
the  justice  meted  out  by  secular  courts,  should  protect  them 
against  the  tyranny  of  what  w  as  called  the  church. 

There  was  a  limit  to  the  power  of  ecclesiastical  courts,  not 
excepting  those  of  the  High  Commission.  They  could  punish 
by  fines  and  forfeitures — could  deprive  clergymen  of  their 
benefices — could  arrest  and  imprison  on  suspicion — could  in- 
terrogate their  prisoner  under  oath  to  make  him  testify 
against  himself— could  hold  him  in  a  pestilential  jail  till  he 
died,  and  could  then  cast  out  his  body  to  be  buried  without 
a  coroner's  inquest;  but  they  could  not  mutilate  the  bodies 
of  their  victims,  nor  put  them  to  death  by  the  hangman.  It 
was  resolved,  therefore,  that  some  of  those  importunate  Sep- 
aratists should  be  hanged  by  sentence  of  a  secular  court. 
The  method  of  suppression  which  had  been  employed  ten 
years  before  at  Bury  St.  Edmund's  was  to  be  tried  again. 

Accordingly  Henry  Barrowe  and  John  Greenwood,  after 
their  six  years  of  imprisonment,  were  indicted,  with  three 
others  less  conspicuous,  "for  publishing  and  dispensing  se- 
ditious books,"  an  oiFense  which  by  an  Act  of  Parliament 
more  than  ten  years  before  had  been  made  a  felony,  and  was 

'  Strype,  "  Whitgift,"  p.  2G0. 


A.D.  159;3.]  THE    CHURCH    AxVD    THE    GALLOWS.  149 

therefore  punishable  with  death.  Tlie  statute,  like  many 
others  of  tliat  reign,  was  aimed  against  the  really  seditious 
rumors  and  publications  which  the  enemies  of  the  Reforma- 
tion and  of  the  queen  were  at  the  time  dispersing  through 
England,  in  the  interest  of  the  Roman  Catholic  pretender, 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  It  was  a  perversion  of  the  statute  to 
a  purpose  which  the  enacting  Parliament  did  not  dream  of 
when  Copping  and  Thacker  were  indicted  under  it  for  dis- 
persing Robert  Browne's  pamphlets  in  behalf  of  voluntary 
churches.  By  a  similar  perversion,  the  five  men  above  men- 
tioned were  indicted  for  their  share  in  the  publication  of 
books  ao^ainst  the  ecclesiastical  establishment  of  Ens^land. 
The  trial  was  not  a  protracted  one.  Only  two  days  after 
the  indictment  they  were  found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be 
put  to  death  on  the  morrow. 

From  a  report  made  on  the  same  day  by  the  attorney-gen- 
eral (Egerton)  to  the  lord-keeper  (Hatton),  it  appears  thai 
one  of  the  five  prisoners,  "  with  tears,  affirmed  himself  to  be 
sorry  that  he  had  been  misled."  He  was  consequently  par- 
doned. "  The  others,"  said  the  attorney-general,  "  pretend 
loyalty  and  obedience  to  her  majesty,  and  endeavor  to  draw 
all  that  they  have  most  maliciously  written  and  published 
against  her  majesty's  government,  to  the  bishops  and  minis- 
ters of  the  church  only,  and  not  as  meant  against  her  high- 
ness ;  which  being  most  evident  against  them,  and  so  found 
by  the  jury,  yet  not  one  of  them  made  any  countenance  of 
submission,  but  rather  persisted  in  that  they  be  convicted 
of."  So  found  by  the  jury!  How  could  it  be  otherwise? 
The  prisoners  had  frankly  acknowledged  their  part  in  the 
writing  and  publication  of  the  books;  and  the  jury  had  been 
instructed  from  the  bench  that  whatever  was  written  and 
published  in  derogation  of  the  queen's  supremacy  over  all 
religious  questions  and  affairs — or  maintaining  that  Christian 
believers  in  London,  under  Elizabeth,  had  the  same  right  of 
instituting  voluntary  churches  which  Christian  believers  in 
Rome  had  under  Nero — was  "  most  maliciously  written  and 


150        GENESIS   OF   THE   NEW   ENGLAND   CHURCHES.       [CH.  VIII. 

published  against  her  majesty's  government."  Nothing  was 
more  obvious  to  all  concerned  than  that  those  prisoners 
were  heartily  loyal  to  the  queen's  person  and  to  her  author- 
ity as  a  secular  sovereign. 

The  two  less  conspicuous  confessors  were  permitted  to 
live;  but  "Henry  Barrowe,  Gentleman,"  and  "John  Green- 
wood, Clerk,"  were  to  die.  Barrowe,  in  the  time  between 
his  condemnation  and  execution,  wrote  a  letter,  giving  an 
account  of  the  trial  and  what  followed, "  to  an  honorable 
lady  and  countess  of  his  kindred,"  probably  the  Countess 
of  Warwick.  In  the  hope  that  his  friend  might  effectively 
represent  his  case  to  the  queen,  he  appealed  to  her  Christian 
sympathy.  There  is  no  evidence  that  she  received  the  letter, 
or  that,  if  she  had  received  it,  she  could  have  had  timely 
access  to  the  sovereign  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  de- 
sired representation.  But  the  letter,  or  a  copy  of  it,  was 
retained  among  the  members  of  the  persecuted  church  ;  and, 
eleven  years  afterward,  it  was  published  in  Holland,  giving 
almost  all  the  information  now  attainable  concerning  the 
particulars  of  the  trial  and  the  singular  experience  of  the 
prisoners  after  their  condemnation  to  death. ^ 

Writing  to  that  noble  "  lady  and  countess  of  his  kindred," 
Barrowe  said:  "Though  it  be  no  new  or  strange  doctrine 
unto  you,  right  honorable  lady,  who  have  been  so  educated 
and  exercised  in  the  faith  and  fear  of  God,  that  the  cross 
should  be  joined  to  the  Gospel — tribulation  and  persecution 
to  the  faith  and  profession  of  Christ ;  yet  this  may  seem 
strange  unto  you,  and  almost  incredible,  that  in  a  land  pro- 
fessing Christ  such  cruelty  should  be  offered  unto  the  serv- 
ants of  Christ,  for  the  truth  and  Gospel's  sake,  and  that  by 
the  chief  ministers  of  the  church,  as  they  pretend." 

In  making  the  statement  of  his  case,  he  said  :  "  For  books 


'  Hanbuiy,  i.,  48,  49;  Waddington,  "Penry,"  p.  117,  118;  "Cong. 
Hist.,"  ii.,  79.  Hanbury's  quotations  are  from  a  copy  published  by  Henry 
Ainsworth  at  Amsterdam,  1604,  in  an  "Apology  or  Defense  of  such  True 
Christians  as  are  commonly,  but  unjustly,  called  Brownists." 


A.D.  1593.]  THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    GALLOWS.  151 

written  more  than  three  years  since  —  after  well-nigh  six 
years'  imprisonment  sustained  at  their  hands  —  have  these 
prelates,  by  their  vehement  suggestions  and  accusations, 
caused  us  to  be  indicted,  arraigned,  condemned  for  writing 
and  publishing  '  seditious '  books,  upon  the  statute  made  the 
twenty -third  year  of  her  majesty's  reign."  Proceeding 
through  all  the  particulars  of  the  indictment,  he  showed  that 
there  was  nothing  "  seditious"  in  the  books,  "  the  matters  be- 
ing merely  ecclesiastical,  controverted  betwixt  this  clergy 
and  us ;"  and  then  he  said,  "  But  these  answers,  or  whatever 
else  I  could  say  or  allege,  prevailed  nothing — no  doubt, 
through  the  prelate's  former  instigations  and  malicious 
accusations.  So  that  I  with  my  four  other  brethren  were 
.  .  .  condemned,  and  adjudged  to  suffer  death  as  felons." 

He  proceeded  with  a  narrative  of  what  had  taken  place 
since  their  condemnation  ;  and  then,  with  the  urgency  of  one 
who  prays  that  if  it  be  possible  the  cup  may  pass  from  him, 
he  appealed  to  the  countess :  "  Let  not  any  worldly  and  pol- 
itic impediments  or  unlikelihoods,  no  fleshly  fears,  diftidence, 
or  delays,  stop  or  hinder  you  from  speaking  to  her  majesty 
on  our  behalf  before  she  go  out  of  this  city ;  lest  we,  by  your 
default  herein,  perish  in  her  absence ;"  for  we  "  have  no  as- 
sured stay  or  respite  of  our  lives,  and  our  malignant  adver- 
saries [are]  ready  to  watch  any  occasion  for  the  shedding  of 
our  blood,  as  we  by  those  two  near  and  miraculous  escapes 
have  found." 

Two  "near  and  miraculous  escapes" — what  were  they? 
"  Early  in  the  morning  "  of  the  day  after  the  trial  ("  direction 
having  been  given  for  execution  to-morrow  as  in  case  of  like 
quality,"  and  the  night  having  come  and  gone  with  no  inti- 
mation of  "  her  majesty's  pleasure  to  have  execution  defer- 
red ")  preparation  was  made  for  the  execution  of  the  con- 
demned. They  were  brought  out  of  the  dungeon,  their 
"  irons  smitten  off,"  and  they  were  "  ready  to  be  bound  to 
the  cart" — tasting  the  very  bitterness  of  death — when  a  re- 
prieve came.     After  that  "the  bishops,"  thinking,  perhaps. 


152       GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.        [CH.  VIII. 

that  their  courage  might  have  failed,  "  sent  certain  doctors 
and  deans"  to  exhort  them  and  confer  with  them.  "But," 
said  Barrowe,  "  we  showed  them  how  they  had  neglected  the 
time.  We  had  been  well-nigh  six  years  in  their  piisons; 
never  refused,  but  always  humbly  desired  of  them  Christian 
conference  .  .  .  but  never  could  obtain  it ;  that  our  time  now 
was  short  in  this  world."  Another  week  in  the  dungeon; 
and  again,  "  early,"  the  daylight  struggling  with  the  fog, 
Barrowe  and  Greenwood — the  two  less  conspicuous  offenders 
being  left  behind — are  brought  forth  to  die ;  again  they  un- 
dergo those  grim  preparations :  they  are  bound  to  the  cart, 
and  "  secretly,"  along  the  streets  not  yet  astir  with  traffic, 
they  are  "conveyed  to  the  place  of  execution" — "tied  by 
the  necks  to  the  tree,"  and  permitted  to  speak  a  few  last 
words.  Let  Barrowe  himself  tell  us  how  they  speak :  "  Crav- 
ing pardon  of  all  men  whom  we  had  any  way  offended,  and 
freely  forgiving  the  whole  world,  we  used  prayer  for  her 
majesty,  the  magistrates,^  people,  and  even  for  our  adver- 
saries." Then,  at  the  last  moment,  when  they  have  tasted 
again  the  bitterness  of  death,  there  comes  another  reprieve, 
and  they  go  back  to  the  dungeon.  "Having  almost  finished 
our  last  words,"  says  Barrowe,  "behold!  one  was,  even  at 
that  instant,  come  with  a  reprieve  for  our  lives  from  her  maj- 
esty ;  which  was  not  only  thankfully  received  of  us,  but  with 
exceeding  rejoicing  and  applause  of  all  the  people,  both  at 
the  place  of  execution  and  on  the  ways,  streets,  and  houses  as 
we  returned." 

There  was  another  month  of  waiting  in  prison,  with  "  no 
assured  stay  or  respite."  Could  the  prisoners  have  been 
subdued  by  the  twice-encountered  terrors  of  death — could 
tliey  have  been  brought,  by  any  method  of  persuasion,  to  re- 
nounce the  truth  which  it  was  their  mission  to  maintain — 
could  they  have  been  induced,  as  Robert  Browne  had  been. 


'  1  Tim.  ii.,  1,  2:   "First  of  all  .   .   .  for  kings,  and  all  that  are  in  au- 
thority." 


A.D.  1593.]  THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    GALLOWS.  153 

to  dishonor  their  own  testimony  by  a  promise  simply  of  sub- 
mission to  the  Church  of  England — there  was  no  room  to 
doubt  that  the  reprieve  would  have  been  made  a  pardon. 
But  the  labor  of  "  doctors  and  deans,"  with  the  gallows  in 
the  background  of  every  exhortation  and  every  syllogism, 
was  unsuccessful.  Those  prisoners  had  seen  the  gallows, 
and  had  felt  the  cord  around  their  necks ;  but  they  had  also 
seen  a  truth  which  the  "doctors  and  deans"  could  not  see, 
and  for  that  truth  they  were  willing  to  die. 

An  explanation  of  those  successive  reprieves  has  been  sug- 
gested, wliich  is  not  improbable.  It  I'ests  on  the  authority 
of  a  contemporaneous  document — a  letter  from  a  person  ap- 
parently well-informed  to  a  friend.  The  first  reprieve  may 
have  come  in  consequence  of  the  suggestion  in  the  attorney- 
general's  report  of  the  case  to  the  lord-keeper,  and  its  being 
kept  back  till  the  prisoners  were  "  ready  to  be  bound  to  the 
cart "  may  have  been  accidental — as,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
may  have  been  intended  and  arranged  for  effect.  The  sec- 
ond is  referred  to  the  influence  of  the  Lord  Treasurer  Bur- 
leigh, who  conferred  with  the  archbishop,  and  finding  him 
"  very  peremptory,"  "  gave  him  and  the  Bishop  of  Worcester 
some  round  taxing  words,  and  used  some  speech  with  the 
(pieen,  but  was  not  seconded  by  any."  Yet  his  personal  in- 
fluence was  such  that  the  prisoners,  '  ns  they  were  ready  to 
l)e  trussed  up,  were  reprieved."^ 

A  certain  bill,  designed  to  make  the  law  more  effective 
against  the  Separatists,  had  passed  the  Hous?  of  Lords,  Avhich 
might  have  been  called  in  those  days  the  H  Mise  of  Bishops; 
but  in  the  House  of  Commons,  where  Puritanism  was  pow- 
erful, it  had  encountered  opposition,  and  had  been  subjected 
to  amendment.  It  was  about  a  month  since  the  last  reprieve 
of  Barrowe  and  Greenwood,  and  they  were  still  lying  in  jail 
and  in  irons,  with  "  no  assured  stay  or  respite,"  when  these 

^  Letter  of  Thomas  Phelipps  to  William  SteiTell.  In  the  British  State- 
Paper  Office,  transcribed  by  Dr.  Waddington,  and  printed  by  Mr.  Hopkins 
in  •'  Puritans  and  Queen  Elizabeth,"  iii. ,  510,  517. 


154        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  VIII. 

proceedings,  so  distasteful  to  Elizabeth  and  her  prelates,  were 
had  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  next  day,  "early  in 
the  morning,"  the  twice -reprieved  prisoners  were  brought 
out  once  more ;  their  irons  were  once  more  smitten  off;  once 
more  they  were  bound  to  the  cart,  and  hastily  driven  to  Ty- 
burn. Again,  under  the  gallows,  with  the  ropes  about  their 
necks,  they  prayed  for  the  queen  and  for  England,  spoke 
their  last  words  to  the  people  gathered  around  the  scaffold ; 
but  there  came  no  reprieve,  and  so  they  were  hanged.' 

1  Phelipps,  in  the  letter  above  cited,  adds:  "It  is  plainly  said  that  their 
execution  proceeding  [proceeded]  of  the  malice  of  the  bishops  to  spite  the 
nether  house,  which  hath  procured  them  much  hatred  among  the  common 
people  affected  that  way. " 


A.D.  1592.]     JOHN  PENKY,  THE   MAHTYK   FOli  EVANGELISM.     155 


CHAPTER  IX. 

JOHN  PENRY,  THE  MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM. 

Eight  months  before  the  martyrdom  of  Barrowe  and  Green- 
wood (September,  1592),  there  came  to  London,  from  the" 
north  country,  a  young  man  of  eminent  gifts  and  eminent 
zeal,  who,  though  he  had  been  hunted  out  of  England  into 
Scotland  for  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  reformation,  had  not  yet 
become  a  Separatist.  Being  thrown  into  association  with 
members  of  the  little  persecuted  church,  he  was  attracted  to 
them  by  his  sympathy  with  their  afflictions,  and  soon  adopt- 
ed their  distinctive  principle  of  "  reformation  without  tarry- 
ing for  any."  This  was  John  Penry ;  and  the  story  of  his 
life  illustrates  the  relation  between  the  spirit  of  evangelism 
and  the  principle  of  voluntary  church  reformation. 

John  Penry,  or  ApHenry,  was  a  Welshman, born  in  the  year 
of  Elizabeth's  accession  to  the  throne  (1555).  At  the  age  of 
nineteen,  he  became  a  student  in  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge. There  his  strong  religious  sensibilities,  which  at  first 
had  been  fascinated  by  the  Roman  ritualism,  were  roused 
and  enlightened  by  the  Puritan  influences  w^hich  lingered  in 
that  seat  of  learning.  Embracing  with  his  whole  heart  the 
Gospel  of  personal  salvation  from  sin  by  personal  faith  in 
Christ  the  Redeemer,  he  seems  to  have  been,  from  the  begin- 
ning of  his  new  life,  much  more  intent  on  a  religious  refor- 
mation, and  especially  on  the  evangelization  of  his  benight- 
ed countrymen  in  Wales,  than  on  any  questions  about  vest- 
ments and  ceremonies  or  about  Church  polity.  Could  he 
have  had  the  religious  liberty  which  was  yet  to  be  achieved 
for  all  the  subjects  of  the  British  crown  by  ages  of  conflict, 
he  would  have  been  such  a  reformer  as  Whitefield  and  the 
Wesleys  were  in  their  day — an  evangelist  flaming  with  the 


156  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

love  of  souls  and  preaching  with  a  tongue  of  fire.  Little  did 
he  care  for  questions  about  prelacy  and  parity  in  the  cler- 
ical body  —  still  less  for  questions  about  clerical  costumes 
and  the  other  trumperies  of  the  queen's  ritual.  His  soul 
o-roaned  over  the  ioiiorance  and  the  sins  of  his  Welsh  coun- 
trynien,  and  his  longing  was  that  to  the  poor  the  Gospel 
might  be  preached.  After  taking  his  first  degree  in  arts  at 
Cambridge,  he  removed  to  St.  Alban's  Hall,  in  Oxford,  where 
there  happened  to  be,  just  then,  more  favor  for  men  of  Puri- 
tan sympathies;  and  there  he  proceeded,  and  became  Master 
of  Arts  when  twenty-five  years  of  age  (1586).  He  declined 
the  offer  of  ordination  "  without  a  call  to  the  ministry  by 
some  certain  church,"  and  contented  himself  with  such  a 
license  to  preach  as  the  university  could  give. 

His  earliest  publication  was  printed  at  Oxford  in  the  course 
of  the  next  year.  It  was,  as  he  described  it  in  his  title-page, 
"  A  Treatise  containing  the  Equity  of  an  Humble  Supplica- 
tion, which  is  to  be  exhibited  to  her  Gracious  Majesty  and 
the  High  Court  of  Parliament,  in  the  behalf  of  the  country 
of  Wales,  that  some  order  may  be  taken  for  the  preaching 
of  the  Gospel  among  those  people:  Wherein  is  also  set  down 
as  much  of  the  estate  of  our  people  as  without  ofiense  could 
be  made  known,  to  the  end  (if  it  please  God)  we  may  be 
])itied  by  those  who  are  not  of  this  assembly,  and  so  they 
may  be  drawn  to  labor  in  our  behalf" 

In  an  introductory  address  "to  all  that  mourn  in  Zion  un- 
til they  see  Jerusalem  in  perfect  beauty,  and,  namely,  to  my 
fathers  and  brethren  of  the  Church  of  England,"  he  expressed 
himself  with  unafiected  humility,  yet  with  the  unconscious 
dignity  of  one  who,  bringing  a  message  from  God,  thinks 
only  of  the  message.  "It  hath  been  the  just  complaint,  be- 
loved in  the  Lord,  of  the  godly  in  all  ages,  that  God's  eternal 
and  blessed  verity,  unto  whom  the  very  heavens  should  stoop 
and  give  obeisance,  hath  been  of  that  small  reckoning  and 
account  in  the  eyes  of  the  most  part  of  our  great  men,  as 
they  valued  it  to  be  but  a  mere  loss  of  time  to  yield  any  at- 


ST.  alban's  hall  oxford  (penry's  college). 


A.D.  1587.]     JOHN  PENRY,  THE  MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM.     157 

tendance  thereupon.  Hence  it  cometh  to  pass  that  the  truth 
being  at  any  time  to  be  countenanced,  none,  very  often,  are 
found  in  the  train  thereof  but  the  most  contemptible  and  ref- 
use of  men ;  and  because  these  also,  being  guilty  unto  them- 
selves of  great  infirmities  (and  foul  sins  many  times),  and 
not  ignorant  that  afiliction  is  the  sequel  of  earnest  and  sin- 
cere profession,  do  pull  their  necks  from  the  yoke,  and  their 
shoulders  from  the  burden,  the  Lord  is  constrained  very  se- 
verely to  deal  with  them  before  they  can  be  gotten  to  go  on 
his  message.  And  (which  is  far  more  lamentable)  inasmuch 
as  the  drowsy  and  careless  security,  the  cold  and  frozen  af- 
fections of  the  godly  themselves,  in  most  weighty  afiairs,  is 
never  wanting — the  Lord  sufiereth  his  own  cause  to  contract 
some  spot  from  their  sinful  hands.  These  considerations,  be- 
loved—  but  es]3ecially  the  latter  —  kept  me  back  a  great 
while  from  this  action,  which  I  have  now,  by  the  goodness  of 
God,  brought  to  this  pass  you  see.  It  would  be  a  grievous 
wound  unto  me,  all  my  life  long,  if  the  dignity  of  a  cause 
worthy  to  have  the  shoulders  of  all  princes  under  the  cope 
of  heaven  for  its  footstool,  should  be  any  whit  diminished  by 
my  foul  hands  —  which,  notwithstanding,  I  profess  to  have 
washed,  so  far  as  their  stains  would  permit." 

With  such  feelings  did  Penry  enter  on  his  life-work,  pro- 
testing that  God  had  thrust  him  upon  that  work  almost 
against  his  will,  yet  comforted  by  the  thought  that  "the 
honor  of  Jesus  Christ"  was  involved  in  it.  "My  silence — 
though  speech  be  to  the  danger  of  my  life — shall  not  betray 
his  honor.  Is  he  not  a  God  ?  Will  he  not  be  religiously 
worshiped  ?  Will  he  not  have  their  religion  framed  ac- 
cording to  his  own  mind  ?  Hath  he  not  regard  whether  his 
true  service  be  yielded  him  or  not?  If  he  have,  woe  be 
unto  that  conscience  that  knoweth  this  and  keepeth  it  secret, 
or  is  slack  in  the  promoting  thereof." 

The  one  aim  of  the  "  Treatise "  is  announced  on  its  de- 
scriptive title-page.  The  author  described  the  moral  and 
religious   condition   of  his   countrymen  in  Wales,  "  whose 


158  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

State,"  said  lie,  "  is  so  miserable  at  this  day,  that  I  think  it 
were  great  indiscreetiiess  for  me  to  spare  any  speech  that 
were  likely  to  prevail.  Nay,  I  would  to  God  my  life  could 
win  them  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel."  He  challenged  the 
pity  of  all  the  godly  for  the  "scars  of  spiritual  misery" 
which  his  book  described.  He  protested  that  "  a  conscience 
must  be  wrought  in  the  people ;"  and  that,  in  order  to  this, 
the  Gospel  must  be  preached  to  them  in  their  mother  tongue 
by  men  whose  experience  had  taught  them  what  the  Gospel 
is.  He  presented  the  details  of  a  plan  for  the  evangelization 
of  Wales.  To  the  coast,  and  to  the  border  towns,  where 
English  was  spoken,  preachers  should  be  sent  from  the  uni- 
versities. Three  hundred,  he  thought,  might  be  found  for 
that  service,  who  would  be  competent  after  a  little  practice. 
Of  these,  perhaps  a  dozen  would  be  Welshmen,  capable  of 
preaching  in  districts  where  the  Welsh  was  the  only  spoken 
language.  Besides  these,  he  would  have  all  Welsh  ministers 
who  were  serving  in  England  sent  home  to  preach  in  their 
native  tongue.  He  thought  the  effect  in  Wales  would  be 
that  "a  number  of  the  idle  drones,"  the  non-preaching  in- 
cumbents of  livings,  would  learn  to  preach.  But  his  scheme 
of  evangelism  was  still  more  comprehensive.  It  included 
something  of  lay  agency,  and  something  even  of  what  is  now 
known  as  the  voluntary  principle.  "  There  be  many  worthy 
men  in  the  Church  of  England  that  now  exercise  not  their 
public  ministry ;  these  would  be  provided  for  among  us.  I 
hope  they  will  not  be  unwilling  to  come  and  gain  souls  unto 
Jesus  Christ.  Private  men,  that  never  were  of  university, 
have  well  profited  in  divinity.  These  no  doubt  would  prove 
more  *  upright  in  heart'  than  many  learned  men.  As  for 
their  maintenance,  they  whose  hearts  the  Lord  hath  touched 
would  thresh  to  get  their  living,  rather  than  the  people 
should  want  preaching.  Our  gentlemen  and  people,  if  they 
knew  the  good  that  ensueth  preaching,  would  soon  be 
brought  to  contribute." 

Such  was  the   scheme  for  preaching  the  Gospel  to  his 


A.D.  1587.]  JOHN  PENRY,  THE  MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM.  159 

brethren,  the  Cambrian  Britons,  which  Penry  proposed  to 
bring  before  the  queen  and  Parliament  in  a  "humble  sup- 
plication." His  petition  was  in  due  time  presented  to  the 
House  of  Commons  by  a  member  who  affirmed  that  its 
representations  'concerning  the  condition  of  Wales  were 
true.  No  objection  was  made  to  it,  and  nothing  came  of  it 
in  Parliament.  But  the  book  in  which  the  bold  scheme  of 
evangelization  had  been  laid  before  the  public  was,  to  Arch- 
bishop Whitgift,  an  inexpiable  offense.  "  Orders  were  is- 
sued, immediately,  for  the  seizure  of  the  book  and  the  appre- 
hension of  its  author.  Penry  was  thrown  into  prison,  and 
the  strictest  injunction  given  to  the  jailer  to  keep  him  safe- 
ly. For  a  month  lie  remained  in  doubt  of  the  charge  that 
was  to  be  preferred  against  him" — just  as  Barrowe  was  put 
into  prison,  and  kept  there,  without  any  definite  charge  on 
which  he  was  to  be  tried,  and  against  which  he  might  pre- 
pare to  defend  himself  At  the  end  of  the  month  he  wa& 
brought  before  the  High  Commission  for  an  examination  like 
those  to  which  Barrowe  and  Greenwood  were  subjected.^ 
In  other  words,  he  was  brought  into  the  presence  of  Whit- 
gift and  other  dignitaries  to  be  questioned  and  scolded  like  a 
schoolboy.  His  scheme  was  denounced  by  the  archbishop 
as  "intolerable."  The  underlying  idea  of  the  obnoxious 
book  was,  "  How  shall  they  believe  in  Him  of  whom  they 
have  not  heard,  and  how  shall  they  hear  without  a  preacher?" 
Having  this  conception  of  the  way  to  save  men,  the  author 
had  intimated  that  the  non-preaching  clergy  were  not  really 
ministers ;  and  that  idea,  the  primate  said,  was  "  heresy." 
Penry's  answer  was, "  I  thank  God  that  I  ever  knew  such  a 
heresy,  as  I  will,  by  the  grace  of  God,  sooner  die  than  leave 
it."  Cooper,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  interposed  :  "  I  tell  thee 
it  is  a  heresy,  and  thou  shalt  recant  it  as  a  heresy."  "  Never," 
said  the  prisoner,  "  God  willing,  so  long  as  I  live."  After 
some  further  imprisonment,  he  was,  for  that  time,  set  at 


'  Ante,  p.  91-108. 

L 


160     GENESIS  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CHUKCHES.   [CH.  IX. 

liberty.^  Evidently  enough,  such  a  man  was  likely  to  appear 
again  before  the  queen's  High  Commissioners  for  causes  ec- 
clesiastical. 

We  can  not  but  observe  a  sort  of  audacity,  and  almost 
defiance,  iu  the  answers  of  Separatists  when  a  charge  of 
heresy  against  any  of  their  opinions  was  intimated  by  a 
bishop,  of  the  High  Commission.  England,  under  the  preced- 
ing reign,  had  seen  enough  of  burnings  for  heresy;  and  it 
would  hardly  be  safe  for  Queen  Elizabeth's  bishops  to  follow 
too  closely  the  example  of  Queen  Mary's.  One  instance  of 
that  punishment  there  had  been  since  the  restoration  of 
Protestantism.  About  twelve  years  before  this  examination, 
Smithfield  had  been  illuminated  with  the  burning  of  two 
Dutch  Anabaptists,  whom  a  sentence  from  the  Consistory 
Court  of  the  Bishop  of  London  had  delivered  for  that  pur- 
pose to  the  secular  power,  and  it  may  be  supposed  that  the 
effect  on  the  sensibilities  of  the  people  had  not  been  such  as 
to  encourage  a  repetition  of  the  atrocity.  When  Whitgift 
attempted  to  terrify  Barrowe  by  a  suggestion  of  fire  and 
fagots,^  and  when  he  made  the  same  experiment  on  Penry, 
the  tone  of  their  answers  was  as  if  they  had  said,  "  Hang 
us,  if  you  will — burn  us,  if  you  dare." 

Certainly  that  first  attempt  in  authorship  had  not  been 
successful.  The  edition  of  five  hundred  copies  had  been 
seized,  and  the  author  imprisoned.  What  printer  would  dare 
to  be  concerned  in  the  publication  of  another  such  book? 
Under  that  discouragement,  Penry  consulted  with  other  ad- 
vanced Puritans  in  and  about  Northampton,  where  he  was 
then  residing  with  the  wife  whom  he  had  lately  married. 
Their  consultations  brought  them  to  the  determination  that, 
so  far  as  their  cause  was  concerned,  tlie  art  of  printing  should 
not  exist  in  vain,  and  that,  if  they  could  not  have  a  free 
press,  they  would  have  a  secret  press.  Arrangements  were 
therefore  made  for  that  purpose ;  though  on  so  small  a  scale 

^  Strype,  "  Annals,"  iii.,  pt.  ii.,  573,  574.  ^  Ante,  p.  102. 


A.D.  1587.]    JOHN  PENRY,  THE  MAETYE  FOE  EVANGELISM.     161 

that  the  entire  establishment,  when  hunted  out  of  one  place, 
could  be  readily  and  safely  transported  to  another.  Penry's 
second  publication  seems  to  have  been  the  first  product  of 
that  secret  press.  It  was  entitled  "  A  View  of  some  Part  of 
such  Public  Wants  and  Disorders  as  are  in  the  Service  of 
God  within  her  Majesty's  Country  of  Wales  ;  together  w^ith 
an  Humble  Petition  unto  the  High  Court  of  Parliament  for 
their  speedy  redress."  In  its  spirit  and  aim,  as  well  as  in  its 
subject,  it  was  like  its  predecessor.  The  author  had  lost 
nothing  of  his  ardor,  and  he  uttered  his  mind  not  less  freely 
than  before,  ending  his  petition  with  these  words : 

"Thus  I  have  performed  a  duty  toward  the  Lord,  his 
church,  my  country,  and  you  of  this  High  Court,  which  I 
would  do,  if  it  were  to  be  done  again,  though  I  were  assured 
to  endanger  my  life  thereby.  And  be  it  known  that,  in  this 
cause,  I  am  not  afraid  of  earth.  If  I  perish — I  perish.  My 
comfort  is  that  I  know  whither  to  go;  and  in  that  day 
wherein  the  secrets  of  all  hearts  shall  be  manifested,  the  sin- 
cerity of  my  cause  shall  appear.  It  is  enough  for  me,  how- 
soever I  be  miserable  in  regard  to  my  sins,  that  yet  unto 
Christ  I  both  live  and  die ;  and  I  purpose  by  his  grace,  if  my 
life  should  be  prolonged,  to  live  hereafter  not  unto  myself, 
but  unto  him  and  his  church  otherwise  than  hitherto  I  have 
done.  The  Lord  is  able  to  raise  up  those  that  are  of  purer 
hands  and  lips  than  I  am,  to  write  and  sjDcak  in  the  cause  of 
his  honor  in  Wales.  And  the  Lord  make  them,  whosoever 
they  shall  be,  never  to  be  wanting  in  so  good  a  cause ;  the 
which,  because  it  may  be  the  Lord's  pleasure  that  I  shall 
leave  them  behind  me  in  the  world,  I  earnestly  and  vehe- 
mently commend  unto  them  as  by  this  last  will  and  testa- 
ment. And  have  you,  right  honorable  and  w^orshipful  of 
this  Parliament,  poor  Wales  in  remembrance,  that  the  bless- 
ing of  many  a  saved  soul  may  follow  her  majesty,  your  hon- 
ors and  worships,  overtake  you,  light  upon  you,  and  stick 
unto  you  forever.  The  eternal  God  give  her  majesty  and 
you  the  honor  of  building  his  church  in  Wales;  multiply 


162  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

the  days  of  her  peace  over  us ;  bless  her  and  you  so  in  this 
life  that  in  the  life  to  come  the  inheritance  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  may  be  her  and  your  portion  forever.  So  be  it, 
good  Lord !" 

The  one  thought  ever  present  to  John  Penry  was  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  in  his  native  mountains.  His  next 
pamphlet,  issued  from  the  same  press,  was  an  "  Exhortation 
unto  the  Governors  and  People  of  her  Majesty's  Country  of 
Wales,  to  labor  earnestly  to  have  the  preaching  of  the  Gos- 
pel planted  among  them."  Perhaps,  as  he  advanced,  his  ve- 
hement zeal  grew  more  unsparing  in  its  censures  on  the  ex- 
isting order  of  things,  and  on  those  who  were  responsible  for 
it.  Yet  he  protested,  "Let  no  man  do  me  the  injustice  to 
report  that  I  deny  any  members  of  Christ  to  be  in  Wales.  I 
protest  I  have  no  such  meaning,  and  would  die  upon  the  per- 
suasion that  the  Lord  hath  his  chos.en  in  my  dear  country; 
and  I  trust  the  number  of  them  will  be  daily  increased." 
Yet  he  insisted  on  his  principle,  denounced  by  prelates  as  a 
heresy,  that  the  non-preaching  incumbents  of  livings  were 
not  ministers  of  Christ.  "The  outward  calling,"  said  he, 
"  of  these  dumb  ministers,  by  all  the  presbyteries  in  the 
world,  is  but  a  seal  pressed  upon  water  which  will  receive 
no  impression."  Li  advising  his  countrymen  how  to  apply 
and  cany  out  the  principle,  he  almost  reached,  unconsciously, 
the  position  of  the  Separatists.  "  The  word  preached,  you 
see,  you  must  have.  Live  according  to  it  you  must.  Serve 
the  Lord  as  he  will,  in  every  point,  you  must,  or  so  be  for- 
ever in  your  confusion.  Difficulties  in  this  case  must  not  be 
alleged,  for  if  you  seek  the  Lord  with  a  sure  purpose  to  serve 
him,  he  hath  made  a  promise  to  be  found  of  you.  Away, 
then,  with  these  speeches:  *How  can  we  be  provided  with 
preaching  ?'  '  Our  livings  are  impropriated — possessed  by  non- 
residents.' Is  there  no  way  to  remove  these  dumb  ministers 
but  by  supplication  to  her  majesty,  and  to  plant  better  in 
their  stead  ?  Be  it  you  can  not  remove  them.  Can  you  be- 
stow no  more  to  be  instructed  in  the  way  of  life  than  that 


A.D.  1588.]     JOHN  PENRY,TUE  MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM.      163 

which  the  law  hath  already  alienated  from  your  possession? 
You  never  made  of  your  tithes  as  of  your  own.  For  shame  ! 
Bestow  something  that  is  yours,  to  have  salvation  made 
known  unto  you."  So  near  did  he  come  to  the  idea,  which 
he  had  not  yet  accepted,  of  "  reformation  without  tarrying 
for  any." 

It  was  not  in  a  frenzied  thoughtlessness  of  consequences 
that  he  made  this  appeal  to  his  countrymen.  But  the  thought 
of  personal  danger,  though  manifestly  present  in  his  mind, 
was  overborne  by  higher  considerations.  He  told  the  story 
of  that  ancient  city  which,  being  at  w^ar  with  the  Athenians, 
"made  a  law  that  whosoever  would  motion  a  peace  to  be 
concluded  with  the  enemy  should  die  the  death ;"  and  how, 
when  the  city  was  pressed  by  the  besiegers,  and  the  people 
were  beginning  to  perish  with  sword  and  famine,  "  a  citizen, 
pitying  the  estate  of  his  country,  took  a  halter  about  his 
neck,  came  into  the  judgment-place,  and  spake  :  '  My  masters, 
deal  with  me  as  you  will — but,  in  any  case,  make  peace  with 
the  Athenians,  that  my  country  may  be  saved  by  my  death.' " 
Aware  that  the  enemies  of  his  cause  had  power  to  hang  him, 
he  said  :  "  My  case  is  like  this  man's.  I  know  not  my  danger 
in  these  things.  I  see  you,  ray  dear  and  native  country,  per- 
ish ;  it  pitieth  me.  I  come  with  the  rope  about  my  neck  to 
save  you.  Howsoever  it  goeth  with  me,  I  labor  that  you 
may  have  the  Gospel  preached  among  you.  Though  it  cost 
my  life,  I  think  it  w^ell  bestowed." 

These  publications  were  the  more  obnoxious  to  the  High 
Commission  because  the  secret  press  from  which  they  pro- 
ceeded was  at  the  same  time  employed  in  printing  a  series 
of  satirical  pamphlets  bearing  the  name  of  "Martin  Marprel- 
ate."  The  memory  of  John  Penry  has  suffered  under  the  im- 
putation of  sharing  in  the  authorship  of  those  pasquinades. 
Doubtless  he  Jiad  much  to  do  with  the  secret  press ;  but 
nothing  could  be  more  unlike  him  than  any  participation  in 
the  authorship  of  the  Marprelate  tracts,  or  any  sympathy  with 
their  characteristic  spirit,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  he 


164  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  IX. 

was  in  any  way  responsible  for  them.  His  work  was  of  an- 
other sort.  The  weapons  of  his  warfare  were  of  another* 
temper.  All  the  authentic  indications  of  his  character  show 
us  an  intense  earnestness,  a  most  unaffected  seriousness,  a 
singular  frankness  and  fearlessness,  and  a  most  transparent 
simplicity.  It  would  be  unreasonable  to  believe,  without  the 
most  conclusive  proofs,  that  he  had  any  connection  with  the 
anonymous  "  Martinists,"  other  than  that  his  pamphlets  and 
theirs  were  printed  at  the  same  press.  He  said  that  he  would 
not  "feed  the  humors  of  the  busybodies  who,  increasing  them- 
selves still  more  unto  ungodliness,  think  nothing  so  well 
spoken  or  written  as  that  which  is  satirical  and  bitingly  done 
against  the  lord-bishops."  Dr.  Some,  who  wrote  against  Bar- 
rowe  and  Greenwood  while  they  were  in  prison,  and  called 
them  Anabaptists,  had  previously  assailed  Penry  in  a  style 
of  insolence  which  would  have  justified  a  severe  reply.  But 
Penry,  instead  of  answering  the  scorner  according  to  his  folly, 
defended  his  own  positions  with  a  modesty  and  meekness 
most  unusual  in  the  controversies  of  those  times.  "  Unless 
you  alter  your  judgment,"  said  he,  "I  can  never  agree  with 
you  in  these  points,  because  I  am  assured  you  swerve  from 
the  truth.  Yet  this  disagreement  shall  be  so  far  from  mak- 
ing a  breach  of  that  love  wherewith,  in  the  Lord  Jesus,  I 
am  tied  to  you,  that  I  doubt  not  but  we  shall  be  one  in  that 
day  when  all  of  us  shall  be  at  unity  in  him  that  remaineth 
one  and  the  selfsame  forever.  Pardon  me,  I  pray  you.  I 
deal  as  reverently  as  I  may  with  you,  retaining  the  majesty 
of  the  cause  I  defend."  "  I  would  be  loth  to  let  that  syllable 
escape  me  that  might  give  any  the  least  occasion  to  think  that 
I  carry  any  other  heart  toward  you  than  I  ought  to  bear  to- 
ward a  reverend,  learned  man,  fearing  God." 

There  was  little  need  of  imputing  to  Penry  the  authorship 
of  the  Marprelate  tracts  in  order  to  find  matter  of  accusation 
against  him  before  the  High  Commission.  In  successive  pub- 
lications, to  which  his  own  name  was  always  subscribed,  he 
had  denounced  the  established  hierarchy,  not— as  other  Pu- 


A.D.  1589.]     JOHN  PENRY,  THE  MARTYK  FOR  EVANGELISM.      165 

ritans  were  denouncing  it — because  its  methods  of  govern- 
ment and  its  forms  of  worship  were  inconsistent  with  Chris- 
tian simplicity,  but  for  the  deeper  reason  that  it  hindered  and 
opposed  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  to  the  people.  "  The 
least  part,"  said  he,  "  of  the  sin  of  our  bishops  hath  been  in 
the  maintenance  of  unprofitable,  superstitious,  and  corrupt 
ceremonies.  If  they  would  but  yield  free  passage  unto  the 
truth,  and  her  authority  unto  the  church,  in  other  matters, 
they  should  not  be  greatly  molested  for  these  things.  Our 
controversies  arise,  because  they  are  not  permitted,  with  the 
consent  of  the  servants  of  God,  to  smother,  persecute,  de- 
prave, and  corrupt  the  truth  of  that  religion  which  in  name 
they  profess,  and  to  undermine  and  lead  captive  the  church 
of  God  in  this  land."  Such  an  adversary,  continually  imput- 
ing to  the  ecclesiastical  establishment  and  its  rulers  the  no- 
torious "  famine  of  the  word  of  God,"  was  pre-eminently  ob- 
noxious. The  emissaries  of  the  High  Commission  were  on 
the  scent  of  the  secret  press  which  was  so  dangerous  a  ma- 
chine, and  he  was  suspected  of  connection  with  it.  His 
study,  at  Northampton,  was  searched  in  his  absence  (Jan.  29 
O.  S.  =z:Feb.  7  N.  S.,  1589)  by  an  officer  of  that  arbitrary  court, 
who  took  away  with  him  all  such  printed  books  and  papers 
"  as  he  himself  thought  good ;"  and  then,  at  his  departure, 
charged  the  mayor  of  the  town  to  apprehend  Penry  as  a 
traitor,  giving  out  that  he  had  found  in  that  search  "  printed 
books  and  also  writings  which  contained  treason." 

Standing  for  those  traditions  of  English  liberty  which 
were  imperiled  in  his  person,  Penry  immediately  published 
another  tract,  "The  Appellation  of  John  Penry  unto  the 
High  Court  of  Parliament,  from  the  vile  and  injurious  deal- 
ing of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  others,  his  col- 
leagues in  the  High  Commission,  wherein  the  Complainant, 
submitting  himself  and  his  cause  unto  the  determination  of 
this  honorable  assembly,  craveth  nothing  else  but  either  re- 
lease from  trouble  and  persecution  or  just  trial."  Admitting, 
frankly,  that  he  had  labored  to  destroy  "the  wicked  hierarchy 


166  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

with  whatsoever  corruption  dependeth  thereon,"  he  denied 
that  he  had  used  or  sought  to  use  any  other  force  than  truth. 
He  made  a  most  earnest  profession  of  his  loyalty.  "  I  have 
been,"  said  he,  "  all  the  days  of  my  life  at  my  studies.  I 
never,  as  yet,  dealt  in  any  cause,  more  or  less,  in  any  thing 
that  any  way  concerneth  civil  estate  and  government ;  and 
as  for  attempting  any  thing  against  her  majesty's  person,  I 
know  that  Satan  himself  dares  not  be  so  shameless  as  to  in- 
tend any  accusation  against  me  on  that  point."  "The  cause 
is  the  cause  of  God :  it  is  the  cause  of  the  church,  and  so  the 
cause  of  many  thousands  of  the  most  trusty,  most  sure,  most 
loving  subjects  that  her  majesty  hath ;  whose  hearts,  by  the 
repelling  of  this  my  suit,  must  be  utterly  discouraged  and 
thrown  down.  My  only  suit  and  petition  is,  that  either  I 
may  have  assurance  of  quietness  and  safety ;  or  that,  the 
causes  of  my  trouble  being  laid  open  by  mine  adversaries, 
I  may  receive  the  punishment  of  my  offenses.  I  crave  no 
immunity;  let  me  have  justice — that  is  all  I  crave." 

A  few  days  after  that  search  and  seizure,  a  royal  procla- 
mation was  issued  (Feb.  13=:23)  against  seditious  and  schis- 
matical  books.  The  books  aimed  at  were  described  as  "  tend- 
ing to  bring  in  a  monstrous  and  dangerous  innovation  of  all 
manner  of  ecclesiastical  government  now  in  use,  and,  with 
a  rash  and  malicious  purpose,  to  dissolve  the  state  of  the 
prelacy,  being  one  of  the  three  ancient  estates  of  the  realm 
under  her  highness,  whereof  her  majesty  mindeth  to  have  a 
reverent  regard."  Of  course,  detectives  were  immediately 
put  upon  a  search  for  such  books,  and  for  their  authors  and 
publishers.  The  time  had  come  when  Penry  must  iind  a 
refuge  not  only  for  himself,  but  for  his  wife  and  child.  An 
order  for  his  arrest  had  been  issued  from  the  Privy  Council. 
He  fled  with  his  family  into  Scotland,  where  he  was  kindly 
received,  inasmuch  as  he  had  not  become  a  Separatist  like 
Robert  Browne,  who  was  there  five  years  before,  and  Avhose 
antipathy  to  the  Kirk  in  the  northern  kingdom  was  hardly 
less  than  to  the  Established  Church  in  England. 


A.D.  1590-92.]   JOHN  PENP.Y,  MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM.   167 

Puritanism,  such  as  Cartwright  had  testified  for,  was  pre- 
dominant in  Scotland,  and  Penry  was  permitted  to  preach 
there.  In  addition  to  his  preaching,  he  translated  from  the 
Latin,  and  published,  with  a  characteristic  preface,  a  theo- 
logical work  entitled  "  Propositions  and  Principles  of  Divin- 
ity disputed  in  the  University  of  Geneva."  But  Queen 
Elizabeth  thought  that  a  fugitive  for  whose  arrest  an  order 
had  been  issued  from  her  Privy  Council  ought  not  to  find 
safety  by  going  beyond  the  Tweed,  and,  at  her  instigation,^ 
the  King  of  Scotland  (afterward  James  I.  of  England)  issued 
an  order  (Aug.  6,  1590)  that  "John  Penry,  Englishman," 
should  depart  from  the  kingdom  within  ten  days,  and  not 
return  under  pain  of  death.  But  by  the  friendly  interven- 
tion of  the  Scottish  clergy,  the  public  proclamation  which 
was  necessary  to  make  the  order  effective  was  in  some  way 
"  staid  ;"  and  the  refugee  remained  in  Scotland  till  he  had 
printed  for  English  readers  another  of  his  obnoxious  books, 
"A  Treatise  wherein  it  is  manifestly  proved  that  Reforma- 
tion, and  those  who  are  sincerely  for  the  same,  are  unjustly 
charged  with  being  enemies  to  her  majesty  and  the  state." 

After  more  than  three  years  in  Scotland,  he  returned,  with 
his  family,  to  England.  He  was  not  ignorant  of  the  peril 
Avhich  he  encountered,  the  order  from  the  Privy  Council  for 
his  arrest  being  still  in  force.  It  had  been  in  his  thoughts  to 
obtain,  if  possible,  an  interview  with  the  queen — in  whom 
he  seems  always  to  have  had  a  most  loyal  confidence,  and 
to  beg  of  her  the  liberty  of  personally  preaching  the  Gospel 
in  his  beloved  Wales.  It  was  with  some  such  expectation 
lingering  in  his  mind  that  he  arrived  at  London.     Till  now 

^  In  an  autograph  letter  to  her  "  deare  brother  the  King  of  Scotland," 
Elizabeth,  after  entreating  him  to  "stop  the  mouths,  or  make  shorter  the 
tongues  of  such  ministers  as  dare  to  make  oraison  [prayer]  in  their  pulpits 
for  the  persecuted  in  England  for  the  Gospel,"  referred  him  to  her  messen- 
ger for  particulars,  "beseeching  you,"  said  she,  '■^not  to  give  harbor  room  to 
vagabond  traitors  and  seditious  inventors,  but  to  return  them  to  me,  or  banish 
them  your  land." — Waddington,  "  Penry,"  p.  58. 


168  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

(Sept.,  1592)  he  had  been  only  a  Puritan,  longing  and  striving 
for  a  further  reformation  of  the  National  Church  by  national 
authority  ;  but  now  he  was  prepared  to  accept,  in  all  its  ap- 
plications, the  emancipating  principle  of  "  Reformation  with- 
out tarrying  for  any."  Before  he  left  Scotland,  he  had 
knowledge  of  the  persecuted  disciples  at  and  around  Lon- 
don, who,  instead  of  agitating  for  a  reformation  of  the  state 
church,  were  attempting  to  reform  themselves  by  instituting 
a  voluntary  church  after  the  manner  of  the  primitive  disci- 
ples. To  their  fellowship  he  was  attracted  by  his  religious 
sympathies.  When  the  church  completed  its  organization, 
he  was  invited,  notwithstanding  the  recency  of  his  arrival 
among  them,  to  become  one  of  its  officers ;  but  he  declined 
the  service.  "  It  hath  been  my  purpose,"  he  said,  "  to  em- 
ploy my  small  talent  in  my  poor  country  of  Wales,  where  I 
know  that  the  poor  people  perish  for  want  of  knowledge ; 
and  this  was  the  only  cause  of  my  coming  out  of  that  coun- 
try where  I  was,  and  might  have  stayed  privately  all  my  life 
— even  because  I  saw  myself  bound  in  conscience  to  labor 
for  the  calling  of  my  poor  kindred  and  countrymen  unto  the 
knowledge  of  their  salvation  in  Christ."  But  though  he 
sustained  no  office  among  his  brethren,  he  was  active  to 
promote  their  spiritual  welfare.  Sometimes  he  preached  in 
their  assemblies.  Sometimes  their  meetings  were  held  in 
his  house.  He  could  not  print,  but  he  wrote  a  "  History  of 
Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram — applied  to  the  prelacy,  min- 
istry, and  church  assemblies  of  England;"  which  was  circu- 
lated in  manuscript  copies,  and  was,  at  last,  published  in  a 
printed  edition  fifteen  years  after  the  author's  death.  That 
book,  like  his  other  works  on  the  same  theme,  was  addressed 
to  the  Parliament ;  but  the  title  of  it  implies  that  he  no  long- 
er recognized  the  ecclesiastical  establishment  of  England  as 
a  Christian  church. 

On  the  day  which  intervened  between  the  indictment  of 
Barrowe  and  Greenwood  and  their  condemnation  to  death 
(March  22:=  31),  Penry  was  arrested,  the  place  of  his  con- 


A.D.  1593.]     JOHN  PENEY,  THE  MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISil.     169 

cealment  having  been  discovered  by  treachery.  A  few  days 
after  his  arrest,  his  wife,  accompanied  by  a  friend  (a  widow 
at  whose  house  he  had  preached  his  last  sermon),  presented 
to  the  Lord  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal  a  humble  petition  in 
his  behalf  "  Your  suppliant's  poor  husband,"  said  she,  "  is 
at  this  present  kept  close  prisoner,  .  .  .  none  suffered  to 
come  to  him  to  bring  him  such  things  as  are  necessary  for 
the  preservation  of  his  life  and  sustenance — he  of  himself 
being  a  very  weak  and  sickly  man,  not  able  long  to  endure 
so  hard  and  unreasonable  imprisonment  without  hazard  of 
his  life."  "Most  humbly,  therefore,  she  beseecheth  your 
honor,  for  God's  cause,  in  consideration  of  her  poor  hus- 
band's sickly  and  weak  state,  that  it  would  please  you  to 
grant  your  honor's  warrant  that  she  may  have  access  unto 
her  poor  husband,  to  administer  such  necessaries  unto  him 
as  she  may,  for  the  preservation  of  his  life."  The  petition 
was  ineffectual ;  and  the  incident  is  on  record  that  the  widow 
who  went  with  that  sorrowful  wife  to  stand  by  her  when 
she  presented  her  petition,  was  seized  and  committed  to  the 
Gate-house  jDrison,  simply  for  "being  with  Penry's  wife 
when  she  presented  the  petition  to  the  Lord  Keeper." 

It  should,  nevertheless,  be  told  to  the  honor  of  the  jailer, 
that  he  seems  to  have  been  as  kind  toward  those  who  were 
imprisoned  for  conscience'  sake  as  his  responsibility  to  his 
superiors  would  permit  him  to  be.  Penry  himself,  not  long 
after  his  wife's  unsuccessful  petition,  said  of  that  keeper  of 
the  prison,  "  They  do  him  injury  who  say  that  I  have  want- 
ed either  meat  or  drink  competent  since  I  was  committed 
to  his  custody."  He  thought  himself  more  likely  to  perish 
with  cold  than  with  hunger.  "My  wife,  indeed,"  he  added, 
"  can  not  be  permitted  to  come  unto  me ;  she  knoweth  not 
how  I  fare ;  and,  therefore,  she  may  be  in  fear  that  I  am,  in 
regard  of  meat  and  drink,  hardlier  used  than  I  am  or  have 
been." 

Having  passed  nearly  two  weeks  in  prison,  and  knowing 
what  was  before  him,  he  began  to  write  his  latest  counsels 


170  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

and  farewells  to  his  wife,  to  his  little  children,  and  to  the 
church.  Strangely,  and  as  if  by  some  special  providence  of 
God,  those  memorials  have  been  preserved  to  history.  Like 
the  Second  Epistle  of  Paul  to  Timothy,  written  from  a  pris- 
on, and  when  the  writer  could  say,  "I  am  now  ready  to  be 
offered,  and  the  time  of  my  departure  is  at  hand,"  they  are 
full  of  what  no  devoutly  Christian  soul  can  fail  to  recog- 
nize as,  in  some  true  sense,  a  divine  inspiration.  As  we  read 
them,  we  hear  the  sighing  of  the  prisoner,  we  feel  the  beat- 
ing of  his  heart,  we  catch,  as  from  his  eye,  the  gleam  of  his 
heroic  constancy.  Those  testamentary  letters  of  his  can  hard- 
ly be  matched  in  all  the  martyrology  of  Christendom  for 
unaffected  and  unconscious  grandeur  of  Christian  faith,  or 
for  utterances  of  tenderness  rippling  the  calm  surface  with 
gushes  from  "  unsounded  deeps  "  of  human  sorrow. 

The  letter  to  his  wife  was  dated  on  the  fifteenth  day  of 
his  imprisonment  (April  6).  While  it  is  too  long  to  be  in- 
troduced without  abridgment  into  this  narrative,  some  por- 
tions of  it  must  have  place  as  illustrations  of  what  the  man 
was,  and  what  the  cause  in  which  he  suffered : 

"  To  my  beloved  wife,  Hellenor  Penry,  partaker  with  me 
in  this  life  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom  and 
patience  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  resting  with  me  in  undoubted 
hope  of  that  glory  which  shall  be  revealed — all  strength  and 
comfort,  with  all  other  spiritual  graces,  be  multiplied  through 
Jesus  Christ  my  Lord. 

"  I  see  my  blood  laid  for,  my  beloved,  and  so  my  days  and 
testimony  drawing  to  an  end,  for  aught  I  know ;  and  there- 
fore I  think  it  my  duty  to  leave  behind  me  this  testimony 
of  my  love  to  so  dear  a  sister  and  so  loving  a  wife,  in  the 
Lord,  as  you  have  been  to  me. 

"  First,  then,  I  beseech  you,  stand  fast  in  the  truth  which 
you  and  I  profess  at  this  present  in  much  outward  discour- 
agement and  danger.  Let  nothing  draw  you  to  be  subject 
unto  Antichrist,  in  any  of  his  ordinances.  Let  your  soul  and 
your  body  "be  far  from  those  assemblies  which  yield  either 


A.D.  1593.]     JOHN  PENRY,  THE  MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM.     171 

known  or  secret  submission  unto  the  ordinances  of  the  'beast' 
— that  is,  to  receive  his  'mark'  either  in  the  right  hand  or 
in  the  forehead."  .  .  . 

"Again,  my  beloved,  continue  a  member  of  that  holy  so- 
ciety whereof  you  and  I  are ;  where  the  Lord  in  his  or- 
dinances reigneth  :  for  here,  and  in  all  such  assemblies,  the 
Lord  dwelleth  by  the  presence  and  power  of  his  Spirit.  Here 
he  is  a  mighty  protector,  and  a  defense  ready  at  hand ;  and 
his  ordinances,  you  know,  he  hath  commanded  to  be  great- 
ly observed.  Our  souls  are  to  rejoice  in  those  ways  more 
than  in  all  substance  and  treasure,  and  the  loving  kindness 
of  the  Eternal  is  forever  toward  them,  and  their  seed,  that  re- 
member his  ordinances  to  do  them."  .  .  . 

"  My  dear  wife  and  sister,  look  not  at  any  earthly  thing ; 
consecrate  yourself  wholly — both  soul  and  body,  husband, 
children,  and  whatsoever  you  have  —  unto  the  Lord  your 
God.  Let  them  not  be  dearer  unto  you  than  God's  service 
and  worship.  Know  it  to  be  an  unspeakable  preferment  for 
you  that  he  vouchsafeth  to  take  either  yourself  or  any  of 
yours  to  suffer  afflictions  with  him  and  his  Gospel.  .  .  .  Fear 
not  the  want  of  outward  things.  He  careth  for  you.  The 
Lord  is  my  God  and  yours,  and  the  God  of  our  seed.  I  know, 
if  you  and  our  poor  children  continue,  that  you  shall  see  a 
blessed  reward  in  this  life  for  those  small  and  weak  suffer- 
ings of  ours  for  the  interest  and  right  of  Christ  Jesus ;  for  I 
am  assured  that  the  Lord  will  give  a  breathing  time  of  com- 
fortable rest  unto  his  poor  church  in  this  life.  In  the  mean 
time,  wait  patiently  the  Lord's  leisure."  .  .  . 

"Pray  with  your  poor  family  and  children  morning  and 
evening,  as  you  do.  Instruct  them  and  your  maid  in  the  good 
ways  of  God,  so  that  no  day  pass  over  your  head  wherein 
you  have  not  taught  them  (especially  her)  some  one  principle 
of  the  truth.  Think  the  time  greatly  gahied,  as  I  have  often 
told  you,  that  is  spent  in  the  word  of  the  Lord.  Among 
other  places  of  the  word  wherein  I  would  have  you  be  con- 
versant in  regard  of  these  times,  I  pray  you  read  the  37th 


1V2  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUBCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

Psalm;  Isa.  Ix.,  and  Ixi.,  Ixii.,  Ixiii. ;  Matt.  xx. ;  Exod.  xxii., 
22 ;  Job  xxiv.  to  xxvii."  ^ 

..."  Above  all  things,  pray  that  he  would  restore  beau- 
ty unto  the  church,  and  overthrow  the  religion  of  the  Roman 
Antichrist  in  every  part  thereof.  Observe  your  own  special 
infirmities  and  wants,  and  be  earnest  with  the  Lord  that  he 
would  do  them  away  and  consume  them  by  the  power  of 
his  Spirit.  Remember  me  also,  and  my  brethren  in  bonds, 
that  the  Lord  would  assist  us  with  the  strength  and  comfort 
of  his  Spirit  to  keep  a  good  conscience,  and  to  bear  a  glo- 
rious testimony  to  the  end.  Yea,  be  not  void  of  hope  but  I 
may  be  restored  again  by  your  prayers ;  and  therefore,  also, 
be  earnest  with  him  for  my  deliverance. 

"If  the  Lord  shall  end  my  days  in  this  testimony,  ...  I 
am  ready  and  content  with  his  pleasure.  Keep  yourself,  my 
good  Helen,  here  with  this  poor  church.  You  may  make  all 
good  refuge  and  stay  here,  as  any  widow  else,  for  your  out- 
ward estate.  Though  you  could  not,  yet  I  know  that  you 
had  rather  dwell  under  the  wings  of  the  God  of  Israel  in 
poverty,  with  godly  Ruth,  than  to  possess  kingdoms  in  the 
land  of  Moab ;  and  what  shift  soever  you  make,  keep  our 
poor  children  with  you,  that  you  may  bring  them  up  your- 
self in  the  instruction  and  information  of  the  Lord.  I  leave 
you  and  them,  indeed,  nothing  in  this  life  but  the  blessing  of 
my  God,  and  his  blessed  promises,  made  unto  me,  a  poor, 
wretched  sinner,  that  my  seed,  my  habitation,  and  family 
should  be  blessed  and  happy  on  the  earth  ;  and  this,  my  sis- 
ter, I  doubt  not  shall  be  found  an  ample  portion  both  for 
you  and  them ;  though  you  know  that  in  hunger  often,  in  cold 
often,  in  poverty  and  nakedness,  we  must  make  account  to 
profess  the  Gospel  in  this  life.  Teach  them  even  now,  I  be- 
seech you,  in  their  youth,  that  lesson,  indeed,  which  was  the 
last  that  I  taught  them  in  word ;  that  is,  if  they  would  reign 

^  If  the  reader  will  open  his  Bible  at  the  passages  thus  referred  to,  he  will 
find  himself  better  acquainted  than  before  with  Penry's  interior  life. 


A.D.  1593.]  JOHX  PENEY,  THE  MARTTR  FOE  EVANGELISM.  1*73 

with  Christ,  they  must  suffer  with  him.  Teach  them  not  to 
look  for  great  things  in  this  life,  but  every  day  to  make  ac- 
count that  they  are  to  yield  up  their  lives,  and  whatsoever 
they  have,  for  their  truth.  While  their  affections  are  yet 
green,  let  them  have  instruction  out  of  the  Word,  and  correc- 
tions meet  for  them.  Yet  you  know  that  parents  must  not 
be  bitter  unto  their  children ;  especially  smite  not  the  elder 
wench  overhard,  because  you  know  the  least  word  will  re- 
strain her.  When  they  are  capable  of  any  hardy  labor,  I 
know  you  will  not  let  them  be  idle.  Let  them  learn  both  to 
read  and  also  to  work.  Howsoever  it  be  ^vlih  them  in  your 
care — or  under  the  hands  of  others — I,  their  father,  do  here 
charge  them,  when  they  come  to  years  of  discretion,  as  they 
will  answer  at  that  great  day  of  judgment,  that  they  join 
themselves  with  the  true  profession  and  church  of  Christ 
wherein  I  now  go  before  them — the  which  charge  of  mine 
that  they  now  keep,  I  beseech  you,  good  wife,  to  put  them 
often  in  mind  of  the  same.  .  .  .  And  withal,  be  careful,  in  case 
you  should  not  be  able  to  keep  them  all  with  you,  that  they 
are  brought  up  with  some  of  the  church,  with  bread  and 
water,  rather  than  to  be  clad  in  gold  with  any,  how  forward 
soever  they  seem  to  please,  that  yield  obedience  unto  the  an- 
tichristian  ordinances. 

"  I  know,  my  good  Helen,  that  the  burden  which  I  lay 
upon  thee,  of  four  infonts,  whereof  the  eldest  is  not  four  years 
old,  will  not  seem  in  any  way  burdensome  unto  thee.  Yea, 
thou  shalt  find  that  our  God  will  be  a  father  to  the  father- 
less and  a  stay  unto  the  widow.  If,  my  dear  sister,  you  are 
married  again  after  my  days,  choose  that,  first,  he  w^ith  whom 
you  marry  be  of  the  same  faith  and  holy  profession  with 
you.  Look  not  so  much  to  wealth  and  estimation  in  the 
world  ;  yet  rather  choose  many  blessings  than  one,  if  you 
may ;  but  only  respect  the  fear  of  God  and  the  meetness  of 
the  party. 

"Thus — having  hitherto  disburdened  myself  of  my  duty 
toward  you,  and  care  over  you  and  our  poor  children,  in 


114  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  IX. 

some  part — to  come  unto  myself,  I  am,  thank  God,  of  great 
comfort  in  him,  though  under  great  trials  of  my  weakness. 
.  .  .  But  in  regard  of  men,  and  in  respect  of  the  cause  of  God 
wherein  I  stand,  I  fear  not  any  power  or  strength  of  man 
whatsoever ;  and  I  am,  this  hour,  most  willing  to  lay  down 
my  life  for  the  word  of  my  testimony;  and  I  trust  I  shall  be 
unto  the  end." 

Having  narrated  some  of  his  experiences  as  a  prisoner  in 
the  hands  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  he  said :  "  They 
were  so  lamentably  ignorant  [of  the  Scriptures],  and  lay 
wait  for  blood  so  cruelly,  that  certainly  the  Lord's  hand  is 
not  far  off.  The  Lord  show  mercy  unto  us  and  them — from 
my  heart  I  say  it.  I  can  not  but  think  that  they  thirst  after 
my  blood,  therefore  pray  for  me,  and  desire  all  the  church  to 
do  the  same. 

"  And  if  I  be  offered  upon  this  sacrifice,  I  pray  thee,  my 
good  Helen,  that  all  the  dispersed  papers  which  I  have  writ- 
ten in  this  cause,  and  are  yet  out  of  the  enemies'  hands,  may 
be  published  unto  the  world  after  my  death,  together  with 
the  letters  which  I  have  written  in  the  same  cause,  that  are 
of  any  moment ;  though  they  be  imperfect,  yet  the  enemies' 
mouths  will  be  stopped  by  that  means,  and  no  small  light  be 
given  unto  the  cause."  .  .  . 

"To  draw  to  an  end,  salute  the  whole  church  from  me, 
especially  those  in  bonds,  and  be  you  all  much  and  heartily 
saluted.  Let  none  of  them  be  dismayed ;  the  Lord  will  send 
a  glorious  issue  unto  Zion's  troubles.  Yet  you  must  all  be 
prepared  for  sufferings  —  I  see  likelihood.  Let  not  those 
which  are  abroad  [not  yet  imprisoned]  miss  to  frequent  their 
holy  meetings. 

"  Salute  my  mother  and  yours  in  Wales,  my  brethren,  sis- 
ters, and  kindred  there.  My  God  knoweth — yea,  yourself 
know — how  earnestly  and  often  I  have  desired  that  the  Lord 
would  vouchsafe  my  service  in  the  Gospel  among  them,  to 
the  saving  of  their  souls  for  evermore  unto  him.  Salute  your 
parents  and  mine,  and  our  kindred  in  Northamptonshire — 


A.D.  1593.]     JOHN  PENEY,  THE   MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM.      175 

with  my  poor  kinsman,  Jenkin  Jones — and  Mr.  Davidd  also, 
though  I  had  not  thought  that  any  outward  respect  would 
have  made  him  to  withdraw  his  shoulders  from  the  Lord's 
ways — but  the  Lord  will  draw  him  forward  in  his  good 
time.  Salute  all  ours  in  Scotland,  upon  the  borders,  and  ev- 
ery way  northward.  .  .  .  Let  it  not  be  known  unto  any,  save 
unto  the  party  who  shall  read  this  unto  you,  that  I  have 
written  at  all  as  yet.  I  got  means,  this  day,  to  wu-ite  this 
much,  whereof  no  creature  living  knoweth." 

To  that  letter,  written  "  in  great  haste,  with  many  tears, 
and  yet  in  great  spiritual  comfort,"  he  subscribed  his  name : 
"  Your  husband  for  a  season,  and  your  beloved  brother  for 
evermore,  John  Penry,  an  unworthy  witness  of  Christ's  tes- 
tament against  the  abominations  of  the  Roman  Antichrist  and 
his  followers — sure  of  victory  by  the  blood  of  the  Lamb." 

Were  these  to  be  his  last  words  to  his  young  wife,  the 
heroic  mother  of  those  little  children  ?  He  could  not  send 
the  letter  w^ithout  a  postscript :  "  In  any  case,  let  it  not  be 
known  that  I  have  written  unto  you — be  sure  thereof.^  I 
would  wish  you  to  go  to  the  judges  for  me,  with  your  chil- 
dren, desiring  them  to  consider  your  hard  case  and  mine. 
Yea,  and  I  would  have  you,  if  you  can,  go  to  the  queen  with 
them,  beseeching  her,  for  God's  cause,  to  show  her  wonted 
clemency  unto  her  subjects — with  my  lord  treasurer  and 
other  of  her  council  whom  you  think  [likely]  to  regard  your 
and  ray  cries ;  for  sure  my  life  is  sought  for.  I  am  ready — 
pray  for  me,  and  desire  the  church  to  pray  for  me,  much  and 
earnestly.  The  Lord  comfort  thee,  good  Helen,  and  strength- 
en thee.  Be  not  dismayed.  I  know  not  how  thou  dost  for 
outward  things,  but  my  God  will  provide.  My  love  be  with 
thee  now  and  ever,  in  Christ  Jesus." 

^  Penry's  anxiety  on  this  point  may  have  been  lest  he  should  compromise 
in  some  way  the  friend  (possibly  the  jailer  himself — see  p.  169)  to  whom  he 
was  indebted  for  the  privilege  of  writing.  ' '  The  party  who  shall  read  this 
unto  "  Mrs.  Penry,  may  have  been  the  same  person,  desirous  of  retaining  in 
his  own  hands  the  evidence  of  his  kindness  toward  the  prisoner. 

M 


176  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

He  found  time  and  means  for  another  letter  to  "  good 
Helen,"  of  which  a  fragment  has  been  preserved.  "  I  trust 
that  my  mother  even  will  lay  up  some  things  for  a  store 
unto  our  poor  children  against  they  come  of  age — if  they 
will  give  you  and  them  nothing  in  the  mean  time.  I  will 
write  unto  them,  if  I  can  by  any  means,  for  this  purpose. 
This  is  a  cold  and  poor  stay,  my  dear  sister  and  wife,  I 
leave  you  and  my  poor  fatherless  mess;  but  my  God  and 
yours  (doubt  you  not)  will  provide  abundantly  for  you  and 
them  if  you  serve  him,  as  I  doubt  not  but  you  will.  But,  my 
good  wife,  for  his  name's  sake,  and  that  with  tears,  take  heed 
that  neither  you  nor  they  return  again  into  Egypt,  whence, 
of  the  Lord's  great  favor,  you  and  I  am  escaped — you  know 
what  I  mean.  Will  you,  or  my  children,  join  with  the  cor- 
ruptions that  are  dyed  with  your  husband's  and  father's 
blood  ?  I  am  not  jealous  of  you,  my  good  wife,  but  warn 
you  and  my  children.  Oh  !  it  is  good  to  stay  the  Lord's 
leisure,  and  to  suffer  with  him.  Li  the  mean  time,  he  will 
overthrow  Babel  and  build  Zion  again." 

The  advice  which  he  gave  to  his  wife  concerning  their 
children  was  not  a  sufficient  expression  of  his  paternal  so- 
licitude for  them.  Looking  beyond  the  years  of  their  father- 
less childhood  to  the  time  when  they  would  be  able  to  ap- 
preciate and  apply  his  dying  counsels,  he  prepared  a  more 
elaborate  epistle  (April  10),  addressed  "To  ray  daughters 
when  they  come  to  years  of  discretion  and  understanding." 
Dated  only  four  days  after  the  letter  to  his  wife,  and  written 
as  by  stealth,  it  must  have  been  the  principal  occupation  of 
those  intervening  days.  It  begins  with  a  few  words,  weighty 
and  well  chosen,  concerning  their  personal  trust  in  Christ  and 
their  obedience  to  the  God  of  their  father.  It  then  warns 
them  against  "the  ordinances  and  inventions  of  Antichrist's 
kingdom,"  and  charges  them  "to  be  subject  unto  all  that 
holy  order  which  Christ  Jesus  hath  appointed  for  the  ruling 
of  his  church  and  members  here  upon  earth."  After  remind- 
ing them  of  their  father's  six  years'  endurance  of  persecution 


A.D.  159o.]     JOHN  PENRYjTHE   MARTYR  FOR   EVANGELISM.     177 

for  Chi-ist,  and  of  their  inotlier's  jjartnership  with  her  hus- 
band in  testimony  and  in  siiftering,  it  proceeds : 

"  Repay  her,  then,  by  your  dutifuhiess  and  obedience,  some 
part  of  that  kindness  which  you  owe  unto  her.  Be  obedient 
to  her  in  word  and  in  deed ;  and  miss  not  to  be  the  staff  of 
her  age  who  is  now  the  only  stay  and  support  that  is  left 
unto  you  in  your  youth  and  infancy.  I  now  leave  four  of 
you  upon  her,  having  nothing  to  speak  of  to  leave  her  and 
you,  save  only  that  everlasting  and  durable  fountain  of  the 
Lord's  blessed  providence  and  promises  who  relieveth  the 
fatherless  and  the  w^idow.  The  eldest  of  you  is  not  yet  four 
years  old,  and  the  youngest  not  four  months ;  and  therefore 
every  way  shall  you  be  indebted  to  that  mother  who  will  think 
it  no  intolerable  burden  to  bear  and  take  the  care  of  you  all." 

After  advising  them  to  be  guided  by  their  mother's  ad- 
vice in  all  things,  and  especially  in  bestowing  themselves  if 
God  should  grant  them  "the  favor  to  enter  into  the  holy 
state  of  matrimony,"  the  testamentary  epistle  proceeds:  "If 
she  will  place  you  in  any  service,  think  not  honest  labor  too 
mean  for  you,  nor  wholesome  diet  too  hard,  nor  clothing  that 
may  cover  you  and  keep  you  warm  over-base  for  you ;  but 
bless  God  that  he  provideth  you  food  and  raiment.  .  .  .  What- 
soever becometh  of  you  in  outw^ard  regard,  keep  yourselves 
in  this  poor  church  where  I  leave  you,  or  in  some  other  holy 
society  of  the  saints.  I  doubt  not  but  my  God  will  stir  up 
many  of  his  children  to  show  kindness  unto  my  faithful  sister 
and  wife,  your  mother,  and  also  unto  you,  even  for  my  sake. 
Although  you  should  be  brought  up  in  never  so  hard  service, 
yet,  my  dear  children,  learn  to  read,  that  you  may  be  con- 
versant, day  and  night,  in  the  word  of  the  Lord.  If  your 
mother  be  able  to  keep  you  together,  I  doubt  not  but  you 
shall  learn  both  to  write  and  read  by  her  means.  I  have  left 
you  four  Bibles,  each  of  you  one ;  being  the  sole  and  only 
patrimony  that  I  have  for  you.  .  .  .  Frequent  the  holy  ex- 
ercises and  meetings  of  the  saints  in  any  case ;  for  there  is 
the  Lord  most  powerful  in  the  holy  ministry  of  his  word; 


178  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

and  you  must  remember  tliat  tlie  Lord  i-egardeth,  loveth,  and 
blesseth  the  public  worship  more  than  any  private  exercise 
of  religion  whatsoever."  .  .  . 

"Show  yourselves  loving  and  kind  unto  all  the  saints  of  God, 
being  ready  to  lay  down  your  lives  to  do  good  unto  the  Lord's 
poor  church  and  members  here  upon  earth.  Whatsoever  you 
have,  bestow  somewhat  thereof  for  the  relief  of  the  church. 
Diminish  from  your  diet  and  apparel,  that  you  may  bestow 
the  same  upon  the  church  and  members  of  Christ,  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  true  worship  and  service  of  God  among 
them."  .  .  . 

In  these  testamentary  counsels  of  the  expectant  martyr 
to  his  children,  he  did  not  forget  his  "  people  and  kindred  in 
the  flesh."  Of  the  Welsh  nation  he  said:  "I  trust  the  time 
is  coming  wherein  God  will  show  mercy  unto  them  by  caus- 
ing the  true  light  of  the  Gospel  to  shine  among  them ;  and, 
my  good  daughters,  pray  you  earnestly  unto  the  Lord — when 
you  come  to  know^  what  prayer  is — for  this,  and  be  always 
ready  to  show  yourselves  helpful  unto  the  least  child  of  that 
poor  country  that  shall  stand  in  need  of  your  loving  support. 
In  any  case,  repay  the  kindness,  if  you  be  able,  which  I  owe 
unto  my  nearest  kindred  there — as  to  my  mother,  brethren, 
and  sisters,  and  the  others,  wdio,  I  am  persuaded,  will  be  most 
kind  toward  you  and  your  mother,  unto  their  ability,  even 
for  my  sake.  Be  an  especial  comfort,  in  my  stead,  unto  the 
gray  hairs  of  my  poor  mother,  whom  the  Lord  used  as  the 
only  means  of  my  [support]  in  the  beginning  of  my  studies, 
whereby  I  have  come  unto  the  knowledge  of  that  most  pre- 
cious faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  defense  whereof  I  stand." 

Having  exhorted  them,  in  like  manner,  to  pray  much  and 
often  for  the  queen,  under  whose  reign  he  had  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth  for  which  he  was  to  suffer — to  show 
kindness  to  all  strangers,  especially  to  "  the  people  of  Scot- 
land, where,"  said  he,  "  I,  your  mother,  and  a  couple^  of  you 

^  Two,  then,  of  the  four  children,  had  been  bora  since  his  return  from  Scot- 
land, and  were  "  not  vet  four  months  old." 


A.D.  1593.]      JOHN  PENKY,  THE  MARTYR  FOR   EVANGELISM.     179 

lived  as  strangers" — to  be  "tender-hearted  toward  the  widow 
and  the  fatherless,"  inasmuch  as  he  was  likely  to  leave  them 
fatherless  and  their  mother  a  widow;  and  having  thus  "un- 
burdened [his]  careful  soul"  in  part,  he  brought  that  sad 
parental  service  to  its  close.  The  broken  phrases,  the  uncor- 
rected lapses  of  the  pen,  betray  the  depth  and  conflict  of 
his  feelings.  "  I  have  written  this,"  he  said,  "  in  that  scarcitj^ 
of  paper,  ink,  and  time,  that  I  could  do  it  no  otherwise  than 
first  it  came  into  my  mind  and  set  it  down,  .  .  .  but  you 
may  take  instruction  by  it  and  follow  it,  that  the  blessing  of 
God  may  light" — as  "upon  the  posterity  of  Jonadab  the  son 
of  Rechab,"  so — "  upon  the  children  of  John  Penry  for  the  obe- 
dience they  have  yielded  unto  their  father's  godly  command- 
me-nt  and  counsel."  "Thus  .  .  .  while  I  am  ready  .  .  .  not 
only  to  be  imprisoned,  but  even  to  die  for  the  name  and  truth 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  which  I  have  maintained,  and  while  I  ac- 
knowledge with  a  loud  and  triumphant  voice  that  the  afflic- 
tions of  this  present  life  are  not  worthy  of  the  glory  which 
shall  be  revealed  unto  us,  I  betake  you,  my  dear  children,  and 
your  loving  mother,  unto  your  most  undoubted  and  careful 
Redeemer  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  whom  be  blessed  forever 
and  ever."  Then,  dating  his  letter  "From  close  prison,  with 
many  tears,  and  yet  in  much  joy  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  he  wrote 
his  name,  "  John  Penry,  a  poor  witness  in  this  life  against  the 
abominations  of  the  Roman  Babel." 

On  the  day  on  which  he  subscribed  that  letter,  the  prisoner 
underwent,  before  two  of  the  High  Commissioners,  a  long  ex- 
amination, in  which  he  witnessed  a  good  confession.  His  an- 
swers were  prompt,  clear,  and  resolute.  One  of  them  may 
serve  as  a  specimen.  In  reply  to  the  accusation,  "  You  labor 
to  draw  her  majesty's  subjects  from  their  obedience  unto  her 
laws,  and  from  this  Church  of  England,"  he  said  :  "  Nay,  I  per- 
suade all  men  unto  obedience  to  my  prince  and  her  laws; 
only  I  dissuade  all  the  world  from  yielding  obedience  and 
submission  unto  the  ordinances  of  the  kingdom  of  Antichrist, 
and  would  persuade  them  to  be  subject  unto  Jesus  Christ 


180  GENESIS    OP    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

and  his  blessed  laws.  And  I  know  this  enterprise  to  be  so 
far  from  being  repngnant  unto  her  majesty's  laws,  as  I  assure 
myself  that  the  same  is  warranted  thereby.  Her  majesty 
liath  granted,  in  establishing  and  confirming  the  Great  Char- 
ter of  England  (whereunto,  as  I  take  it,  the  kings  and  queens 
of  this  land  are  sworn  when  they  come  to  the  crown),  that 
the  Church  of  God,  under  her,  should  have  all  her  rights  and 
liberties  inviolable  forever.  Let  the  benefit  of  this  law  be 
granted  unto  me  and  others  of  my  brethren,  and  it  shall  be 
found  that  we  have  done  nothing  but  what  is  warrantable 
by  her  laws."  Standing  on  the  Magna  Charta  as  the  su- 
preme law  of  the  land,  the  sacred  compact  between  the  sov- 
ereign and  the  people,  renewed  and  sworn  to  at  every  coro- 
nation, he  insisted  that,  under  Queen  Elizabeth, "  the  Church 
of  God" — not  the  Roman  power,  nor  the  English  prelacy  and 
priesthood,  but  the  Church  as  instituted  by  Christ  himself,  with 
"her  rights  and  liberties"  defined  in  the  Scriptures — was  free. 
After  that  inquisitorial  examination,  he  submitted  to  the 
commissioners  a  written  profession  of  his  loyalty  toward  the 
government  and  person  of  the  queen,  and  of  his  faith  toward 
God.  No  man  can  read  that  document,  so  clear,  so  calm,  so 
dignified  in  its  earnestness,  and  not  be  corTvinced  of  its  per- 
fect sincerity.  In  bringing  it  to  a  close,  the  heroic  confessor 
said:  "Death,  I  thank  God,  I  fear  not — in  this  cause  espe- 
cially— for  I  know  that  the  sting  of  death  is  taken  away,  and 
that  they  are  blessed  which  die  in  the  Lord  for  witnessing 
against  the  former  corruptions.  Life  I  desire  not,  if  I  be 
guilty  of  sedition — of  defjiming  and  disturbing  her  majesty's 
peaceable  government."  But  while  thus  professing  his  read- 
iness to  die,  he  went  on  to  say :  "  I  most  humbly  and  earnestly 
beseech  their  honors  and  worships,  in  whose  hands  this  writ- 
ing of  mine  shall  come,  to  consider  that  it  is  to  no  purpose 
that  her  majesty's  subjects  should  bestow  their  time  in  learn- 
ing— in  study  and  meditation  of  the  Word — in  reading  the 
writings  and  doings  of  learned  men  and  of  the  holy  martyrs 
which  have  been  in  former  ages,  especially  the  writings  pub- 


A. D.  1593.]     JOHN  PENEY,  THE   MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM.     181 

lishecl  by  her  majesty's  authority — if  they  may  not,  without 
danger,  profess  and  hold  those  truths  which  they  learn  out 
of  them.  ...  I  beseech  them  also  to  consider  what  a  la- 
mentable case  it  is  that  we  may  hold  fellowship  with  the 
Homish  Church  in  the  inventions  thereof  without  all  danger, 
and  can  not,  without  extreme  peril,  be  permitted  in  judgment 
and  practice  to  depart  from  the  same.  ...  I  beseech  them, 
in  the  bowels  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  be  a  means  unto  her  maj- 
esty and  their  honors,  that  my  cause  may  be  weighed  in  even 
balance.  Imprisonments,  indictments,  arraignments,  yea  death 
itself,  are  no  meet  weapons  to  convince  the  conscience  ground- 
ed upon  the  word  of  God  and  accompanied  with  so  many  wit- 
nesses of  his  famous  servants  and  churches." 

Penry  had  already  said  to  his  wife,  "  I  see  my  blood  laid 
for,  and  so  my  days  and  testimony  drawing  to  an  end."  Yet 
he  would  not  succumb  so  long  as  there  was  any  eifort  to  be 
made  which  be  could  make  without  compromising  the  truth 
for  which  he  was  Christ's  witness.  Expecting  to  be  indict- 
ed, as  Barrowe  and  Greenwood  had  been,  for  sedition,  and 
that  the  indictment  would  be  grounded,  as  in  their  case,  on 
the  books  which  he  had  published,  he  prepared  (probably  not 
witliout  some  aid  of  legal  counsel)  a  paper  showing  what 
points  might  be  insisted  on  in  his  defense  against  such  an  in- 
dictment. Thereupon  another  course  was  taken  by  those 
who  intended  his  death.  Among  his  private  papers  there  had 
been  found  some  imperfect  notes  of  matters  to  be  used  in  a 
memorial  to  the  queen,  which  he  had  thought  of  preparing 
and  presenting  in  person.  In  that  private  memorandum  of 
something  yet  to  be  written,  and  with  no  evidence  that  it 
had  ever  been  communicated  to  any  human  being,  was  the 
matter  for  which  he  was  indicted.  The  trial,  if  trial  it  might 
be  called  where  the  prisoner  was  not  permitted  to  be  heard 
by  counsel,  took  place  at  Westminster  Hall,  two  months  aft- 
er his  arrest  (May  21  =  31) ;  and  of  course  he  was  convicted. 

The  next  day  he  addressed  to  the  queen's  prime-minister, 
Lord  Burleigh,  a  letter,  with  a  formal  "protestation,"  which 


182  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEAV    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

none,  of  whatever  party,  can  read  at  this  time  without  ren- 
dering homage  not  only  to  the  integrity  of  the  man,  but  also 
to  the  Christian  dignity  of  the  martyr.  In  the  letter  he 
says:  "The  cause  is  most  lamentable, that  the  private  obser- 
vations of  any  student,  being  in  a  foreign  land,  and  wishing 
well  to  his  prince  and  country,  should  bring  his  life  .  .  .  unto 
a  violent  end ;  especially  seeing  they  are  most  private,  and  so 
imperfect  as  they  have  no  coherence  at  all  in  them,  and,  in 
most  places,  carry  no  true  English.  .  .  .  Though  mine  inno- 
cency  may  stand  me  in  no  stead  before  an  earthly  tribunal, 
yet  I  know  that  I  shall  have  the  reward  thereof  before  the 
judgment-seat  of  the  Great  King  ;  and  the  merciful  Lord, 
who  relieveth  the  widow  and  fatherless,  will  reward  my  des- 
olate orphans  and  friendless  widow  that  I  leave  behind  me, 
and  even  hear  their  cry — for  he  is  merciful."  In  the  "prot- 
estation," after  a  conclusive  argument  to  prove  his  inno- 
cence of  the  crime  for  which  he  was  condemned,  and  the  un- 
reasonableness of  the  construction  put  upon  his  private  pa- 
pers, he  told  what  the  great  business  of  his  life  had  been,  and 
what  his  aspirations  had  been:  "I  am  a  poor  young  man, 
born  and  bred  in  the  mountains  of  Wales.  I  am  the  first, 
since  the  last  springing  up  of  the  Gospel  in  this  latter  age, 
that  labored  to  have  the  blessed  seed  thereof  sown  in  those 
barren  mountains.  I  have  often  rejoiced  before  my  God,  as 
he  knoweth,  that  I  had  the  favor  to  be  born  and  live  under 
her  majesty,  for  the  promoting  of  this  work.  In  the  earnest 
desire  I  had  to  see  the  Gospel  in  my  native  country,  and  the 
contrary  corruptions  removed,  I  might  well,  as  I  confess  in 
my  published  writings,  .  .  .  forget  my  own  danger;  but  my 
loyalty  to  my  prince  did  I  never  forget.  And  being  now 
to  end  my  days  before  I  am  come  to  the  one  half  of  my 
years  in  the  likely  course  of  nature,  I  leave  the  success  of  my 
labors  unto  such  of  my  countrymen  as  the  Lord  is  to  raise 
after  me,  for  the  accomplishing  of  that  work  which,  in  the 
calling  of  my  country  unto  the  knowledge  of  Christ's  blessed 
Gospel,  I  began." 


A.D.  1593.]     JOHN  PEXIIY,  THE   MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM.     183 

We  linger  in  the  martyr's  prison  cell  while  he  is  writing 
his  final  protestation,  conscious  that  it  is  "  the  last  writing 
which  is  likely  to  proceed  from"  him,  and  "looking  not  to 
live  this  week  to  an  end."  After  an  allusion  to  the  attrac- 
tions which  life  had  for  him,  to  the  "  poor,  friendless  widow" 
and  the  "four  poor,  fatherless  infants"  whom  he  was  leav- 
ing, and  to  the  comparative  lowliness  and  poverty  of  the  con- 
dition in  which  he  had  lived,  he  says :  "  Sufliciency  I  have 
had,  with  great  outward  troubles ;  but  most  contented  was  I 
with  my  lot ;  and  content  I  am,  and  shall  be,  with  my  unde- 
served and  untimely  death,  beseeching  the  Lord  that  it  be 
not  laid  to  the  charge  of  any  creature  in  this  land.  For  I 
do,  from  my  heart,  forgive  all  those  that  seek  my  life,  as  I  de- 
sire to  be  forgiven  in  that  day  of  strict  account — praying 
for  them  as  for  my  own  soul,  that,  although  upon  earth  we 
can  not  accord,  we  may  yet  meet  in  heaven  unto  our  eternal 
comfort  and  unity.  .  .  .  And  if  my  death  can  procure  any 
quietness  to  the  church  of  God,  or  the  state,  I  shall  rejoice. 
I  know  not  to  what  better  use  it  [my  life]  could  be  employed 
if  it  were  reserved ;  and  therefore  in  this  cause  I  desire  not 
to  spare  the  same.  Thus  have  I  lived  toward  the  Lord  and 
my  prince  ;  and  thus  I  mean  to  die,  by  his  grace.  Many 
such  subjects  I  wish  unto  my  prince,  though  no  such  reward 
to  any  of  them." 

Having  added  his  request,  "  as  earnest  as  possibly  I  can 
utter  the  same,  unto  all  those,  both  honorable  and  worship- 
ful, unto  whom  this  my  last  testimony  may  come,  that  her 
majesty  may  be  acquainted  herewith  before  my  death — if  it 
may  be,"  he  subscribes  his  name,  "with  that  heart  and  that 
hand  which  never  devised  or  wrote  any  thing  to  the  discred- 
it or  defamation  of  my  sovereign.  Queen  Elizabetli — I  take  it 
on  my  death,  as  I  hope  to  have  a  life  after  this.  By  me, 
John  Penry." 

There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  Elizabeth  ever  saw  that 
protestation,  or  heard  of  it.  It  was  submitted  to  the  judges, 
as  the  queen's  advisers;   and  their  comment  remains  in  the 


184  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CUUKCHES.       [CH.  IX. 

State  Paper  Office.  "  Penry,"  they  said,  "  is  not,  as  he  pre- 
tendeth,  a  loyal  subject,  but  a  seditious  disturber  of  her  maj- 
esty's peaceable  government.  [It]  appeareth  many  ways." 
Among  those  "  many  ways,"  they  alleged  "  his  schismatical 
separation  from  the  society  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
joining  with  the  hypocritical  and  schismatical  conventicles 
of  Barrowe  and  Greenwood,"  and  also  "his  justifying  of  Bar- 
rowe  and  Greenwood,  who,  suffering  worthily  for  their  sedi- 
tious writings  and  preachings,  are  nevertheless  represented 
by  him  as  holy  martyrs." 

Such  was  English  liberty  under  the  sceptre  of  Elizabeth. 
The  voluntary  association  of  Christian  men  for  united  wor- 
ship and  for  mutual  helpfulness  in  the  Christian  life  —  the 
quiet  meeting,  in  fields  and  woods,  or  in  private  apartments, 
for  the  worship  of  God  in  any  form  or  way  not  prescribed 
by  the  authority  of  that  petticoated  pope  who  called  herself 
"Supreme  Governor  of  the  Church  of  England  "  —  in  one 
word,  Congregationalism— W2i^  "  sedition,"  to  be  punished  by 
death.  Green  be  the  memory,  forever,  of  the  men  who,  in 
that  cruel  age,  with  the  gallows  before  them,  and  with  the 
hangman's  noose  about  their  necks,  asserted  and  obeyed  a 
higher  law.  To  them,  under  God,  do  we  owe  it  that  in  less 
than  thirty  years  from  that  date  there  began  to  be  a  New 
England;  and  that  Old  England  itself,  to-day,  is  free  En- 
gland. 

Four  days  after  trial  and  conviction,  the  prisoner  was 
brought  up  and  sentence  of  death  was  pronounced  against 
him.  In  the  ordinary  course  of  proceeding,  execution  would 
have  followed  on  the  second  or  third  day  after  the  sentence. 
For  some  reason  there  was  a  day's  delay,  and  a  respite  began 
to  be  hoped  for.  But  on  the  fourth  day  (May  29= June  7), 
Whitgift  and  other  lords  of  the  queen's  council  affixed  their 
names  to  the  death-warrant,  the  archbishop's  name  being  the 
first.  At  five  o'clock,  afternoon,  the  martyr  was  carried  on  a 
cart  from  his  prison  in  Southwark  to  the  usual  place  of  execu- 
tion for  that  county,  at  the  second  mile-stone  on  the  Kent 


A.D.  1593.]      JOHN  PENRY,  THE   MARTYR  FOR  EVANGELISM.      185 

road,  near  a  brook  which,  in  memory  of  Thomas  a  Becket, 
was  called  St. Thomas-a- Watering.  An  unexpected  day  and 
hoar  had  been  chosen  for  tlie  execution,  that  his  friends  might 
have  no  opportunity  of  cheering  him  with  their  presence.  A 
few  persons,  who  had  seen  the  gallows  so  suddenly  prepared, 
were  standing  around.  To  them  the  martyr  would  have 
spoken ;  but  not  one  Word  was  he  permitted  to  utter  in  their 
hearing.  It  was  almost  sunset,  and  the  sheriff  and  hang- 
man were  in  haste.  They  finished  their  work  ;  and  John 
Penry,  in  the  thirty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  having  shared  the 
ignominy  of  our  Lord,  who  was  hanged  on  a  tree  for  sedi- 
tion, went  to  be  with  Christ.^ 

^  Dr.  Waddington's  "John  Penry,  the  Pilgrim  Martyr."  gives  all  that  is 
known  concerning  Penry,  and  clears  his  memory  from  the  charge  that  would, 
make  him  the  author  of  the  Marprelate  tracts. 


186  GENESIS    OF   TUE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.         [CH.  X. 


CHAPTER  X. 

PERSECUTION   AND    EXILE  I    THE    CHURCH    AT   SCROOBT. 

At  the  time  when  Barrowe  and  Greenwood  ended  their 
testimony,  a  certain  "  Act  to  retain  the  queen's  subjects  hi 
obedience"  was  passing  through  Parliament.  On  the  day 
after  their  death,  the  bill,  having  been  modified  by  Puritan 
influence  in  the  Commons  with  the  view  of  making  it  efiectual 
against  Separatists, "  without  peril  of  entrapping  honest  and 
loyal  subjects,"  was  passed  into  an  act.'  By  that  statute, 
•banishment  from  the  realm  and  forfeiture  of  goods  became 
the  punishment  of  every  Separatist  who,  after  suffering  a 
three-months'  imprisonment,  should  refuse  to  conform.  The 
policy  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  her  attempted  supremacy  over 
the  religion  of  her  subjects  (for  it  was  distinctively  her  pol- 
icy), had  converted  the  men  who  at  first  were  only  anti-ritu- 
alists, scrupulous  about  certain  ecclesiastical  vestments  and 
ceremonies,  into  resolute  Puritans,  demanding  a  presbyterian 
instead  of  a  prelatical  church  government  over  the  nation. 
It  had  converted  Puritans  into  Separatists,  and  now  it  was 
compelling  Separatists  to  become  Pilgrims,  and  preparing 
them  to  become  the  founders  of  a  new  nationality. 

Of  course  the  new  statute  was  first  employed  against  the 
martyr  church  in  London — or,  more  properly,  in  Southwark, 
for  its  place  of  assembling  was  on  that  side  of  the  Thames. 
The  pastor,  Francis  Johnson,  had  already  been  about  four 
months  a  prisoner;  and  the  teacher,  John  Greenwood,  had 
just  been  released  from  his  long  imprisonment  by  being  put 
to  death.    Many  of  the  members  among  them,  some  who  had 


'  The  story  of  how  that  bill  was  carried  through  Parliament  is  well  tokl 
b}'  Mr.  Punchard,  "  History  of  Congregationalism/'  iii.,  103-200. 


A.D.  1594.]  PERSECUTION   AND    EXILE.  187 

been  clergymen  in  the  Church  of  England,  were  suffering  in 
filthy  jails  for  their  testimony  in  behalf  of  Christian  liberty. 
Barrowe,  their  bold  lay  champion,  had  died  on  the  same  gal- 
lows with  his  friend  Greenwood.  The  mockery  of  Penry's 
trial,  followed  by  the  cruelty  of  his  death,  was  four  weeks 
after  the  passage  of  the  act,  and  seems  to  have  been  ar- 
ranged for  the  purpose  of  striking  terror  into  the  Separatists, 
by  showing  them  that  the  new  law  under  which  they  were 
to  be  banished  had  not  superseded  the  old  law  under  which 
they  might  be  hanged  at  the  discretion  of  their  enemies. 

A  letter  from  Johnson,  the  imprisoned  pastor,  to  Lord 
Burleigh  (Jan.  8,  1594),  has  come  down  to  us.  It  shows  that 
at  the  date  of  his  writing  he  had  been  about  fourteen  months 
a  close  prisoner  in  one  jail,  and  his  brother  George  eleven 
months  in  another.  He  complained  that  his  papers  and 
books  had  been  seized,  and  that  all  the  papers,  and  some  of 
the  books  (though  published  by  authority),  were  still  de- 
tained from  him.  A  significant  statement  is  made  concern- 
ing one  of  the  members  of  that  persecuted  church  (William 
Smyth,  formerly  a  clergyman  in  the  Church  of  England),  who 
had  been  examined  by  High  Commissioners  at  Westminster 
a  month  before.  He  had  been,  at  that  time,  eleven  months 
a  prisoner;  and,  at  the  date  of  Johnson's  letter,  he  was  still 
in  prison.  That  unrelenting  offender  against  the  hierarchy 
was  so  bold  as  to  tell  the  High  Commissioners — by  way  of 
illustrating  the  absurdity  of  "  dealing  with  men  by  imprison- 
ment and  other  rigorous  means,  in  matters  of  religion  and 
conscience,  rather  than  by  more  Christian  and  fit  proceed- 
ings " — that  "if  he  should,  to  please  them,  or  to  avoid  trou- 
ble, submit  to  go  to  church,  and  to  join  with  the  public  min- 
istry of  those  assemblies  as  it  now  standeth,  he  being  per- 
suaded in  conscience  that  it  was  utterly  unlawful,"  his  so 
doing  w^ould  be  mere  dissimulation  and  hypocrisy ;  to  w^hich 
the  reply  was,  "  Come  to  the  church,  and  obey  the  queen's 
laws,  and  be  a  dissembler,  be  a  hypocrite  or  a  devil,  if  thou 
wilt." 


188  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.^. 

Two  of  the  many  prisoners  (Johnson  knew  not  who,  but 
might  reasonably  suppose  himself  to  be  one)  were  to  be  in- 
dicted, and  Lord  Burleigh's  powerful  influence  was  invoked 
in  their  behalf  "  We  suffer  these  things,"  said  he,  "  only  for 
refusing  to  have  spiritual  communion  with  the  antichristian 
prelacy  and  other  clergy  abiding  in  this  land,  and  for  labor- 
ing, in   all  holy  and  peaceable   manner,  to  obey  the   Lord 

Jesus  Christ  in  his  own  ordinance  of  ministry  and  worship 

Wherein  if  we  did  err,  yet  prisons  and  gallows  were  no  fit 
means  to  convince  and  persuade  our  consciences ;  but  rather 
a  quiet  and  godly  conference,  or  discussing  of  the  matter  by 
deliberate  writing  before  equal  judges."  He  asked  for  such 
a  conference,  not  as  implying  that  he  and  his  fellow-prisoners 
were  not  ready  to  die  for  the  truth  intrusted  to  them,  "  but 
to  the  end  that,  the  truth  being  found  out  and  made  mani- 
fest, the  false  offices,  callings,  and  works  of  the  prelacy  and 
other  clergy  of  this  land  might  be  quite  abolished  out  of  it; 
and  their  lordships  and  possessions  might  be  converted  to 
her  majesty's  civil  uses  (to  whom  of  right  they  belong),  as 
were,  not  long  since,  the  like  livings  of  the  abbots,  monks, 
and  friars  in  these  dominions,  that  thus  there  might  be  more 
free  passage  to  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  more  peace  to  the 
church." 

Liclosed  in  the  letter  was  a  paper,  drawn  with  an  acute- 
ness  worthy  of  a  practiced  lawyei",  and  designed  to  show 
"That  F.  J.,  for  his  writings,  is  not  under  the  danger  of  the 
statute  of  35  Eliz.,cap.l,  made  to  retain  the  queen's  subjects 
in  their  due  obedience."  Some  of  the  points  taken  are  his- 
torically important  for  the  light  which  they  throw  on  the 
position  of  those  sufferers,  not  only  in  relation  to  principles 
of  universal  religious  freedom,  but  also  in  relation  to  the 
fundamental  principles  of  English  law  and  the  chartered  lib- 
erty of  English  subjects. 

After  a  reference  to  the  Act  of  Supremacy  as  defining  the 
queen's  authority  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  the  question  was 
raised,  for  the  "  prelates  and  ministers"  to  answer,  "  Whether 


A.D.  1594.]  PEKSECUTION    AND    EXILE.  189 

her  majesty,  with  the  consent  of  the  Parliament,  may  sup- 
press and  abolish  the  present  prelacy  and  ministry  of  the 
land,  and  transfer  their  revenues  and  possessions  to  her  own 
civil  uses,  as  her  father,  of  famous  memory,  Henry  VIII., 
did  with  abbots,  monks,  etc.,  and  with  their  livings?"  Ob- 
viously, the  bishops,  had  they  been  required  to  answer  that 
question,  would  have  been  as  much  perplexed  as  were  the 
chief-priests  of  Judaism  when  required  to  answer  whether 
the  baptism  of  John  was  from  heaven  or  of  men.  If  the 
answer  were  No— where  would  be  the  queen's  supremacy 
over  the  Church  of  England  as  by  law  established  ?  If  the 
answer  were  Yes — then  there  was  no  crime  in  Johnson's 
writings  against  the  ecclesiastical  establishment  then  exist- 
ing. 

The  next  point  was  that  his  writings  were  only  in  defense 
of  the  doctrines  maintained  by  "  the  holy  servants  and  mar- 
tyrs of  Christ  in  former  days,"  whose  doctrines,  "  as  being 
against  the  canonical  functions  of  the  pope,  were  accounted 
Lollardy  and  heresy."  If  the  new  statute  is  to  be  con- 
strued as  making  those  doctrines  criminal  for  which  the 
martyrs  before  the  Reformation  suffered,  then  it  must  be 
construed  as  virtually  repealing  the  act  by  which  (in  the 
first  year  of  Edward  YI.)  the  old  statutes  against  Lollardy 
had  been  abrogated. 

Another  point  was  that  Johnson's  writings  were  "  in  de- 
fense of  the  right  and  liberty  of  the  Church  of  Christ ;  which 
the  great  charter  of  England  granteth  shall  be  free,  and  have 
all  her  whole  rights  and  liberties  inviolable."  The  question 
as  to  the  legitimate  meaning  of  Magna  Charta  in  the  clause 
referred  to  might  have  been  argued,  before  learned  and  im- 
partial judges,  with  great  effect.  No  Protestant  Englishr 
man  could  reasonably  maintain  that  the  "Church"  to  which 
"  all  her  rights  and  liberties  "  were  guaranteed  by  that  in- 
strument was  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  the  hierarchy 
unified  and  centralized  in  the  pope.  What  was  commonly 
recoG:nized  as  the  Church  when  the  barons  at  Runnvmede 


190  GENESIS  OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.         [CH.  X. 

extorted  from  King  John  the  great  security  for  the  rights  of 
Englishmen,  was  afterward  reformed  by  Henry  VIII.  and 
Edward  VI.,  and  again  by  Elizabeth — many  of  its  most  val- 
ued institutions  were  suppressed — great  portions  of  its  wealth 
were  seized  and  appropriated  to  other  uses — its  forms  of  wor- 
ship were  revised  and  simplified ;  and  all  this  was  done  pro- 
fessedly in  the  interest  of  the  true  Church  of  Christ  in  En- 
gland. Evidently  the  reforming  sovereigns  and  Parliaments 
had  proceeded  on  the  theory  that  the  Church  to  which  rights 
and  liberties  had  been  guaranteed  by  the  charter  of  the  king- 
dom was  none  other  than  that  institution  which  Christ  found- 
ed. Christ's  own  institution,  then — the  Church  as  Christ 
and  his  apostles  made  it — the  Church  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment Scriptures — was  the  institution  to  which  the  funda- 
mental law  of  England  had  granted  freedom.  Johnson's 
writings  were  in  defense  of  freedom  for  the  Church  of  Christ. 
His  interpretation  (without  which  every  step  of  what  was 
called  the  Reformation  had  been  a  violation  of  the  sover- 
eign's coronation  oath)  would  have  made  the  Magna  Charta, 
just  what  the  church  polity  of  the  New  Testament  is,  a  char- 
ter of  religious  liberty. 

Other  points  in  the  line  of  his  defense  were  these  :  "  He 
never  did,  nor  doth,  obstinately,  without  lawful  cause,  refuse 
to  hear  and  to  have  spiritual  communion  with  the  public 
ministry  of  these  [parish]  assemblies ;"  but  he  refuses  only 
upon  conscience  grounded  upon  God's  word"  ("which  her 
majesty  protecteth  and  defendeth"),  "and  approved  by  con- 
sent of  the  confessions  of  the  Reformed  churches,  and  of 
the  faithful  martyrs  of  Christ ;"  and,  finally,  "  having  been 
close  prisoner  ever  since  long  before  this  statute  was  made, 
he  can  not,  in  regard  of  his  writings  or  any  other  thing  what- 
soever, be  lawfully  convicted  to  have  offended  against  this 
statute."^ 

But  no  such  argument — no  appeal  from  the  letter  of  the 

'  Strype,  "Annals,"  iv.,  134-138. 


A.D.  1594-1600.]         PERSECUTION    AND    EXILE.  191 

new  statute  to  Magna  Charta  or  to  universal  principles  of 
justice — was  allowed  to  prevail  against  the  necessity  of  the 
most  efficient  measures  to  suppress  the  crime  of  separation 
from  the  National  Church.  Since  the  death  of  the  three  mar- 
tyrs, Johnson  was  not  only  most  conspicuous  by  his  official 
position  in  the  Separatists'  church,  but  also  most  obnoxious 
by  his  writings.  He  might  have  been  indicted  and  convict- 
ed under  the  same  statute  which  had  been  used  as  the  means 
of  bringing  his  brethren  to  the  gallows,  but  for  some  reason 
— perhaps  because  it  was  seen  that  the  hanging  of  those 
martyrs  had  made  their  testimony  more  effective — he  was 
proceeded  against  under  the  new  statute,  and,  having  been 
convicted  in  legal  form,  was  compelled  to  "  abjure  the  realm." 
In  other  words,  he  was  banished  for  life,  but  not  till  he  had 
passed  more  than  another  weary  half-year  in  the  foul  prison. 
Others  of  the  persecuted  flock  were  in  like  manner  dismiss- 
ed from  the  prisons  into  life-long  banishment,  and  were  ac- 
companied or  followed  in  their  exile  by  such  as  were  willing 
to  dispense  with  the  process  of  imprisonment,  indictment, 
and  sentence.  Amsterdam  became  to  many  of  these  their 
city  of  refuge.  A  church  of  English  exiles  was  formed  there, 
with  Johnson  for  pastor,  and  the  learned  Henry  Ainsworth 
for  teacher.  It  was  indeed  the  London  or  Southwark  church, 
dispersed  by  persecution,  driven  beyond  sea,  and  gathered 
again  in  a  strange  land. 

This  was  in  conformity  with  advice  which  Penry  had  giv- 
en in  anticipation  of  his  death.  Among  the  letters  written 
by  him  from  his  prison  was  one,  full  of  affectionate  and  sa- 
gacious counsel,  "  to  the  distressed  faithful  congregation  of 
Christ  in  London,  and  all  the  members  thereof,  whether  in 
bonds  or  at  liberty."  The  bill  for  the  "  Act  to  retain  the 
queen's  subjects  in  obedience "  had  not  yet  become  a  law 
when  that  letter  was  written ;  but  it  was  undergoing  discus- 
sion and  amendment  in  order  to  its  passage,  and  they  all 
knew  that  "  on  the  side  of  their  oppressors  there  was  power." 
They  knew  that,  in  one  way  or  another,  the  purpose  of  the 

N 


192  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.        [CH.  X. 

bill  was  likely  to  be  executed.  "My  good  brethren,"  said 
Penry,  "seeing  banishment  with  loss  of  goods  is  likely  to  be- 
tide you  all,  prepare  yourselves  for  this  hard  entreaty."  Aft- 
er warning  them  against  the  temptation  to  shift  every  man 
for  himself  in  the  impending  calamity,  and  entreating  them 
to  take  care  that  the  church  should  not  be  broken  up,  but 
should  o-o  whithersoever  it  might  please  God  to  send  them, 
he  assured  them,  as  with  prophetic  inspiration,  "The  blessing 
will  be  great  that  shall  ensue  this  care ;  whereas,  if  you  go, 
every  man  to  provide  for  his  own  house  and  to  look  for  his 
own  family  first,  neglecting  poor  Zion,  the  Lord  will  set  his 
face  against  you,  and  scatter  you  from  the  one  end  of  heaven 
to  the  other.  .  .  .  You  shall  yet  find  days  of  peace  and  rest, 
if  you  continue  faithful.  This  stamping  and  treading  of  us 
under  his  feet,  this  subverting  of  our  cause  and  right  in 
judgment,  is  done  by  him  to  the  end  that  we  should  search 
and  try  our  ways,  and  repent ;  .  .  .  but  he  will  yet  maintain 
the  cause  of  our  souls,  and  redeem  our  lives  if  we  return  to 
him." 

Then,  having  entreated  those  of  them  who  had  either  some 
property  or  some  trade  by  which  they  might  win  the  means 
of  living,  that  they  should  not  permit  "the  poor  ones"  to 
struggle  alone, "  or  to  end  their  days  in  sorrow  and  mourning 
for  want  of  outward  and  inward  comforts  in  the  land  of 
strangers,"  the  martyr  advised  that  there  should  be  consul- 
tation "  with  the  whole  church,  yea,  with  the  brethren  in  other 
places,  how  the  church  may  be  kept  together,"  so  that  their 
banishment  should  not  be  dispersion;  and  he  added :  "  Let  not 
the  poor  and  the  friendless  be  foi'ced  to  stay  behind  here,  and 
to  break  a  good  conscience,  for  want  of  your  support  and 
kindness  unto  them  that  they  may  go  with  you."  Nor  could 
he  forget  how  closely  some  of  "  the  poor  and  the  friendless" 
were  related  to  him.  "I  beseech  you  that  you  would  take 
my  poor  and  desolate  widow,  and  my  mess  of  fatherless  and 
friendless  orphans,  with  you  into  exile,  whithersoever  you  go. 
.  .  .  Let  them  not  continue  after  you  in  this  land,  where 


A.D.  1593.]  PERSECUTION    AND    EXILE.  193 

they  must  be  enforced  to  go  again  into  Egypt."  He  had 
also  a  word  of  loving  remembrance  for  two  by  name:  "Be 
every  way  comfortable  unto  the  sister  and  wife  of  the  dead, 
I  mean  unto  my  beloved  M.  Barrowe  and  M.  Greenwood, 
whom  I  most  heartily  salute,  and  desire  much  to  be  comforted 
in  their  God,  who,  by  his  blessings  from  above,  will  counter- 
vail unto  them  the  want  of  so  notable  a  brother  and  hus- 
band." ^ 

He  had  already  made  reference  to  "  the  brethren  in  other 
places ;"  but,  before  closing  his  letter,  he  mentioned  them 
again,  more  distinctly,  and  in  words  of  great  significance. 

"  I  would  wish  you  earnestly  to  write — yea,  to  send,  if  you 
may,  to  comfort  the  brethren  in  the  west  and  north  coun- 
tries,2  that  they  faint  not  in  these  troubles,  and  that  also  you 
may  have  of  their  advice,  and  they  of  yours,  what  to  do  in 
these  desolate  times.  And,  if  you  think  it  any  thing  for  their 
further  comfort  and  direction,  send  them  conveniently  a  copy 
of  this  my  letter,  and  of  the  declaration  of  my  faith  and  al- 
legiance, wishing  them,  before  whomsoever  they  be  called, 
that  their  own  mouths  be  not  had  in  witness  against  them 
in  any  thing.  Yea,  I  would  wish  you  and  them  to  be  to- 
gether, if  you  may,  whithersoever  you  shall  be  banished  ;  and, 
to  this  purpose,  to  bethink  you  beforehand  where  to  be ;  yea, 
to  send  some  who  may  be  meet  to  prepare  you  some  resting- 
place;  and  be  all  of  you  assured  that  he  who  is  your  God  in 
England  will  be  your  God  in  any  land  under  the  whole 
heaven ;  for  the  earth  and  the  fullness  thereof  are  his,  and 
blessed  are  they  that,  for  his  cause,  are  bereaved  of  any  part 
of  the  same." 

'  Penry's  letter  to  the  church  was  written  under  the  supposition  that  Bar- 
rowe and  Greenwood  had  already  suffered  death.  It  was  dated  April  24, 
the  day  on  which  those  martyrs  were  first  brought  forth  for  execution  "early 
in  the  morning,"  and  then  respited.  The  news  of  that  respite  had  not  reach- 
ed the  prison  in  which  Penry  was  confined. 

2  Some  readers  may  not  be  aware  that  "county"  and  "country"  were 
originally  the  same  word. 


194  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.  X. 

This  remarkable  passage  gives  us  a  glimpse,  first,  of  the 
fact  that  the  suffering  church  in  London  was  in  relations  of 
correspondence  with  suffering  brethren  in  the  western  and 
northern  counties  of  England  ;  and  then  of  the  fact  that,  while 
the  "Act  for  retaining  the  queen's  subjects  in  obedience" 
was  passing  through  Parliament,  those  persecuted  Christians, 
in  city  and  country,  were  beginning  to  consult  on  the  pos- 
sibility and  the  method  of  keeping  themselves  together  as  a 
distinct  community  in  some  strange  land.  It  was  in  the  de- 
bate on  the  bill  then  pending  that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  es- 
timated the  Brownists  scattered  over  England  at  twenty 
thousand.  Among  the  twenty  thousand  were  those  "  breth- 
ren in  the  west  and  north  countries"  so  affectionately  re- 
membered by  Penry.  Who  were  they?  It  happens  that 
some  of  them  were  men  in  whom  we  have  a  special  interest, 
and  of  whom  some  knowledge  has  come  down  to  us. 

We  change  the  scene,  then,  from  the  narrow  streets  of  old 
London  and  Southwark — from  the  filthy  and  crowded  prisons 
of  the  metropolis — from  the  gallows  at  Tyburn  and  that  at 
the  brook  on  the  road  which  Chaucer's  Canterbury  pilgrims 
traveled — to  another  part  of  England,  nearly  a  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  northward,  where  the  three  "countries"  of  Lincoln- 
shire, Yorkshire,  and  Nottinojhamshire  border  on  each  other. 
■^  Four  years^  before  the  hanging  of  the  three  Separatist 
martyrs,  William  Brewster,  then  about  twenty-three  years 
of  age,  came  to  reside  with  his  father  at  a  certain  old  manor- 
house,  near  the  northern  boundary  of  Nottinghamshire.  Born 
of  an  ancient  family,  and  educated  at  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  he  was  acquainted  with  the  splendid  court  of 
Elizabeth,  and  conversant  with  public  affairs.  He  had 
been  in  the  employment  of  William  Davison,  who,  though 
he  was  a  Puritan,  was  a  trusted  servant  of  the  queen,  her 
embassador  in  the  Netherlands  on  a  mission  of  great  im- 
portance, and  afterward  one  of  her  secretaries  of  state.  His 
relations  with  his  patron,  both  in  the  embassy  and  in  the 

1  For  this  date,  heretofore  uncertain,  I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  II.  M.  Dexter. 


A.D.  1587-94.]  THE    CHURCH    AT    SCROOBY.  195 

court  at  home,  had  been  intimate  and  confidential.  The  sec- 
retary "trusted  him  above  all  others  that  were  about  him," 
"employed  him  in  matters  of  greatest  trust  and  secrecy," 
"  esteemed  him  rather  as  a  son  than  a  servant ;  and  for  his 
wisdom  and  godliness,  [in  private]  he  would  converse  with 
him  more  like  a  friend  and  familiar  than  a  master."^  It  is 
quite  natural,  then,  to  find  that  when,  after  many  years  of 
faithful  service.  Secretary  Davison,  by  one  of  the  queen's 
most  conscienceless  and  most  dishonorable  strokes  of  policy, 
was  disgraced,  robbed  of  all  he  had,  and  imprisoned  in  the 
Tower,  under  the  pretense  that  he  had  acted  contrary  to  her 
will  in  the  matter  of  the  execution  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots 
(February,  1587),  Brewster  "remained  with  him  some  good 
time  after  that  he  was  put  from  his  place,  doing  him  many 
faithful  offices  of  service  in  the  time  of  his  troubles."  Just 
how  long  after  the  downfall  of  his  patron  he  remained  in 
London  does  not  appear.  Nor  do  we  know  whether  he 
had  any  personal  acquaintance  among  the  suffering  Separa- 
tists there.  Two  years  after  the  beginning  of  Davison's  im- 
prisonment, William  Brewster  was  at  the  stately  old  manor- 
house  of  Scrooby,  acting  for  his  infirm  father,  who  held 
an  office  there  in  the  service  of  the  queen.  Five  years 
later  we  find  that  he  Avas  himself  the  "  post,"  or  post- 
master at  Scrooby,  which  was  on  the  great  road  from  Lon- 
don to  York,  and  thence  into  Scotland.  There  he  lived  "  in 
good  esteem  among  his  friends  and  the  gentlemen  of  those 
parts,  especially  the  godly  and  religious."  He  seems  to  have 
become  an  earnestly  religious  man,  and  to  have  accepted  Pu- 
ritan views  at  the  university;  for  there  it  was  that  "the 
seeds  of  grace  and  virtue"  were  eflfectually  planted  in  his 
mind.  He  did  much  for  the  advancement  of  religion  "in  the 
country  where  he  lived."  He  was  active  in  the  Puritan  way 
of  doing  good,  "by  procuring  good  preachers  to  the  places 
thereabout,  and  drawing  on  of  others  to  assist  and  help  for- 

^  Bradford,  "Histoiy  of  Plymouth  Plantation,"  p.  409. 


196  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.         [CH.  X. 

ward  ill  such  a  work,"  contributing  sometimes  beyond  his 
ability.  "  In  this  state  he  continued  many  years,  doing  the 
best  good  he  could,  and  walking  according  to  the  light  he 
saw,  till  the  Lord  revealed  further  unto  him."  More  briefly, 
the  queen's  "master  of  the  posts"  at  Scrooby  was  a  gentle- 
man of  Puritan  sympathies,  working  to  promote  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Gospel  in  the  Church  of  England,  and  hoping  that 
the  remaining  superstitions  would  soon  be  reformed  by  au- 
thority. 

But  in  that  region  the  idea  of  "reformation  without  tarry- 
ing for  any"  was  beginning  to  take  efiect.  Men  were  begin- 
ning to  learn  that  there  might  be  individual  and  personal 
reformation,  voluntary  conformity  to  the  rules  and  principles 
given  in  the  New  Testament,  without  waiting  for  a  reforma- 
tion of  the  National  Church  by  the  national  government. 
How^  this  came  to  pass,  and  by  what  stages  of  progress,  may 
be  best  told  by  one  who  had  himself  no  small  part  in  the 
story.  Tracing  the  movement  from  an  undefined  beginning, 
he  tells  us  that  "  by  the  travail  and  diligence  of  some  godly 
and  zealous  preachers,  as  in  other  places  of  the  land,  so  in 
the  north  parts,  many  became  enlightened  by  the  word  of 
God,  and  had  their  ignorance  and  sins  discovered  by  the  word 
of  God's  grace,  and  began  to  reform  their  lives  and  make  con- 
science of  their  ways."  In  other  words,  they  began  to  be 
conscientious  in  all  things,  and  were  earnest  to  know  the 
will  of  God  that:  they  might  obey  it.  This  was  nothing  else 
than  private  judgment  in  religion — the  practical  recognition 
of  individual  responsibility  to  God— the  first  stage  of  "ref- 
ormation without  tarrying  for  any."  Individuals,  one  by 
one,  were  beginning  to  reform  themselves  under  the  guidance 
of  the  Scriptures.  What  next?  As  soon  as  "the  work  of 
God,"  moving  them  to  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly,  be- 
came manifest  in  them,  "  they  were  both  scoffed  and  scorned 
by  the  profane  multitude ;  and  the  ministers,"  among  whose 
hearers  such  changes  were  taking  place,  began  to  experience 
the  oppressive  urgency  of  the  queen's  hierarchy.    Those  min- 


A.D.  1594-1600.]         THE    CHURCH    AT   SCROOBY.  197 

isters  must  submit  to  "  the  yoke  of  subscription,"  or  be  si- 
lenced. Nor  was  this  all.  Scoffs  and  scorn  might  be  en- 
dured. The  silencing  of  Nonconformist  clergymen — if  it  had 
merely  debarred  them  from  preaching  in  the  pulpits  of  the 
state  church — would  not  have  been  an  intolerable  hardship, 
so  long  as  there  were  private  houses  in  which  they  could 
meet  quietly  tho.se  who  desired  to  hear  them.  But  the 
queen's  supremacy  gave  them  no  such  liberty;  and  the  en- 
ginery of  ecclesiastical  oppression  was  brought  to  bear  on  the 
hearers  as  well  as  the  preachers.  "  The  poor  peoijle  were  so 
urged  with  apparitors  and  pursuivants  and  the  commissary 
courts,  as  truly  their  affliction  was  not  small."* 

In  other  words,  the  same  sort  of  ecclesiastical  discipline  by 
which  John  Copping,  because  of  some  conscientious  irregu- 
larity in  his  manner  of  worshiping  God,  had  been  shut  up  in 
the  jail  of  Bury  St.  Edmunds  year  after  year,  till,  at  last,  he 
was  hanged  for  a  pretended  felony,^  and  by  which  so  many 
reformers  on  the  voluntary  principle  had  been  made  to  suf- 
fer like  things  in  London,  was  employed  upon  these  self-re- 
forming disciples  of  Christ  in  the  north  of  England.  Nor  is 
there  any  j'eason  to  doubt  that  such  proceedings  began  as 
early  there  as  in  the  diocese  of  Norwich  or  in  that  of  Lon- 
don. 

We  can  easily  believe  that  "  truly  their  affliction  was  not 
small."  But  after  they  had  borne  it  "sundry  years  with 
much  patience,"  it  had  the  effect  of  opening  their  minds  to 
receive  additional  light  on  the  ecclesiastical  questions  of  those 
times — an  effect  which  Elizabeth  and  her  prelates  had  not 
expected.  In  the  quaint  phrase  of  their  own  chronicler, 
"  they  were  occasioned  by  the  continuance  and  increase  of 
these  troubles,  and  other  means  which  the  Lord  raised  up  in 
those  days,  to  see  further  into  these  things  by  the  light  of 
the  word  of  God."  At  first  they  were  simply  Puritans — non- 
conforming members  of  a  National  Church  which  had  not 

*  Bradford,  p.  8.  ^  Ante^  chap.  v. 


198  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  X. 

been  sufficiently  reformed  in  its  ritual — devout  men,  consci- 
entiously omitting  certain  prescribed  ceremonies  in  public 
worship,  and  occasionally  seeking  to  supply  the  hunger  of 
their  souls  elsewhere  than  in  their  own  parish  churches — loy- 
al Protestants,  lamenting  the  compromises  which  had  been 
made  with  popery,  and  hoping  for  a  time  when  the  obnox- 
ious vestments  and  ceremonies  should  be  abolished.  But  by 
the  force  of  persecution  stimulating  their  attention,  and  by 
the  progress  of  inquiry  and  discussion,  they  were  brought  to 
see  "  that  not  only  those  base,  beggarly  ceremonies  were  un 
lawful,  but  also  that  the  lordly,  tyrannous  power  of  the  prel- 
ates ought  not  to  be  submitted  to."  Taught  and  stimulated 
by  "apparitors  and  pursuivants  and  commissary  courts," 
they  learned  that  the  entire  structure  of  the  state  church 
made  "  a  profane  mixture  of  persons  and  things  in  the  w^or- 
ship  of  God,"  and  that  not  only  certain  phrases  and  rubrics 
in  the  prescribed  forms  of  public  worship,  but  the  very  "  of- 
fices and  callings "  of  the  established  clergy,  their  "  courts 
and  canons,"  and  all  their  distinctive  authority  and  rule, 
"  were  unlawful  and  antichristian." 

With  these  premises  settled  in  their  minds,  it  was  not  dif- 
ficult for  them,  especially  when  urged  by  continual  persecu- 
tion, to  make  another  stage  of  progress.  They  were  brought 
to  the  conclusion  that,  whatever  might  be  the  Christian  char- 
acter of  some  congregations  in  the  parishes  of  England,  and 
however  numerous  the  true  followers  of  Christ  and  mem- 
bers of  his  body  might  be  among  the  English  people,  the  ec- 
clesiastico  -  political  institution  called  "the  Church  of  En- 
gland" was  not  at  all  a  church  in  any  New  Testament  mean- 
ing of  the  word,  but  was  (as  their  experience  had  proved) 
a  positively  antichristian  institution.  Having  arrived  at  this 
conclusion,  they  could  no  longer  be  Puritans  merely,  waiting 
and  protesting  in  the  hope  of  a  new  reformation  to  be  made 
by  national  authority  in  the  National  Church.  They  found 
incumbent  on  them  a  personal  duty  of  reformation  —  even 
of  church  reformation — "without  tarrying  for  any."     As  on 


A.D.  1602.]  THE    CHUKCH    AT    SCROOBY.  199 

the  first  Christians  in  Antioch  and  in  Rome,  before  churches 
existed  there,  the  duty  was  incumbent  oi  forming  churches 
according  to  the  mind  of  Christ ;  so  on  them,  in  England, 
where  Christ's  institution  had  been  subverted,  and  a  differ- 
ent institution  set  up  in  its  place,  there  was  incumbent  a 
duty  of  re-formation  of  churches. 

How  long  the  time  was  in  which  they  were  passing  through 
these  successive  stages  of  reformation,  and  at  what  date 
they,  or  any  of  them,  adopted  definitely  the  principle  of  sep- 
aration from  the  state  church,  we  have  no  means  of  know- 
ing exactly.  Some  of  "  the  brethren  in  the  north  countries," 
to  whom  Penry  sent  his  dying  testimony  and  advice,  may 
have  been  dwelling  in  the  neighborhood  of  Scrooby,  and 
may  have  had  personal  intercourse  with  him  as  he  passed 
on  the  road  to  Scotland,  or  as  he  returned.  At  the  date 
of  his  return,  Brewster  was  already  at  home  in  the  great 
manor-house  there.  But  Penry  himself  had  not  then  become 
a  member  of  a  Separatist  church  ;  and  it  may  be  that  those 
brethren  were  at  that  time  no  further  advanced  than  he.  We 
know,  however,  on  good  authority,  that,  nine  years  after  Pen- 
ry's  death  (1602),  "divers  godly  Christians  in  the  north  of 
England,  being  studious  of  reformation,  and  therefore  not 
only  witnessing  against  human  inventions  and  additions  in 
the  worship  of  God  " — as  the  Puritans  did  in  one  way  or  an- 
other— "but  minding  most  the  positive  and  practical  part  of 
divine  institutions,  .  .  .  entered  into  covenant  to  walk  with 
God,  and  one  with  another,  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  ordi- 
nances of  God,  according  to  the  primitive  pattern  in  the 
word  of  God."  ^  Or,  in  the  words  of  the  earlier  historian, 
"  they  shook  off  the  yoke  of  antichristian  bondage,  and,  as 
the  Lord's  free  people,  joined  themselves  by  a  covenant  of 
the  Lord,  into  a  church  estate  in  the  fellowship  of  the  Gos- 
pel, to  walk  in  all  his  ways  made  known,  or  to  be  made 
known  to  them,  according  to  their  best  endeavors,  whatever 

^  Morton,"  New  England's  Memorial,"  p.  9,  10  (Boston,  ISo;')). 


200  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  X. 

it  should  cost  them.  .  .  .  And" — with  a  vivid  memory  of  all 
the  way  in  which  they  had  been  led  for  more  than  forty 
years  of  persecution,  flight,  exile,  and  conflict  with  the  hard- 
ships of  a  wilderness,  the  chronicler  added,  significantly — 
"that  it  cost  them  something  this  ensuing  history  will  de- 
clare." 

This  was  not  far  from  the  time  when  Queen  Elizabeth, 
after  a  i-eign  of  forty-four  years,  was  succeeded  by  James  I. 
(March,  1603),  who  had  been  king  in  Scotland  from  the  time 
when  his  mother,  Mary,  had  been  deposed  by  her  subjects. 
A  crowned  king  while  yet  an  infant,  he  was  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  the  Protestant  nobles  who  governed  in  his  name. 
He  was  carefully  educated  for  his  kingly  oflice,  under  the 
strictest  discipline,  and  with  all  the  culture  of  which  his  nat- 
ure was  capable.  In  the  old  age  of  Elizabeth,  there  was  nat- 
urally some  relaxation  of  the  severity  with  which  oflenders 
against  the  Act  of  Uniformity  had  been  persecuted  ;  for  it  was 
possible  that  the  king  of  Presbyterian  Scotland,  succeeding 
to  the  headship  of  the  National  Church  in  England,  might 
inaugurate  a  new  reformation.  The  Puritans  were  hoping 
not  only  that  the  mediaeval  ritualism  —  which  had  been  so 
dear  to  Elizabeth,  and  so  odious  to  scrupulous  consciences — 
would  be  purged  out  of  the  national  worship,  but  that  the 
ecclesiastical  government  of  the  realm  would  be  reconstruct-' 
ed  according  to  the  pattern  which  Cartwright  had  seen  in 
the  mount.  Even  the  Separatists  could  not  but  hope  for 
some  relief  from  a  new  sovereign  who  had  made  ostentatious 
professions  of  Protestantism.  But  all  such  hopes  were  speed- 
ily disappointed.  James  Stuart's  experience  of  Puritanism 
in  Scotland  had  not  made  him  a  Puritan.  He  had  played 
the  hypocrite  long  enough  in  the  presence  of  court  preachers 
so  much  like  John  the  Baptist  as  those  to  whom,  from  his 
youth  up,  h^  had  listened  with  some  show  of  deference;  and 
great  was  his  joy  to  find  himself  surrounded  by  obsequious 
prelates,  who  assured  him  that  he  spoke  "  by  the  special  as- 
sistance of  God's  Spirit,"  and  on  their  knees  professed  their 


A.D.  1603-1607.]         THE    CHURCH    AT    SCROOBY.  201 

joy  that  God  had  given  them  "such  a  king  as  since  Christ's 
time  had  not  been."  The  policy  of  Elizabeth,  as  supreme 
ruler  of  the  National  Church,  was  maintained  with  renewed 
zeal  by  the  king  and  his  prelates.  Archbishop  Whitgift,  the 
conscientious  and  therefore  relentless  persecutor  of  noncon- 
formity, lived  only  to  see  the  "  Scotch  mist,"  which  he  had 
feared,  dissolving  into  sunshine  for  the  hierarchy,  and  w^as 
succeeded  by  Bancroft,  a  man  of  the  same  sort,  but  less  wor- 
thy of  respect — less  conscientious,  perhaps,  but  not  less  a  per- 
secutor. 

It  was  at  the  period  of  transition  from  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth to  that  of  James  I.,  and  from  the  primacy  of  Whitgift 
to  that  of  Bancroft,  that  those  "  brethren  in  the  north  coun- 
tries," assuming  their  rights  "  as  the  Lord's  free  people,"  be- 
came, by  their  covenant  with  each  other  and  w^ith  God,  a 
church  of  Christ,  and  determinately  "  shook  off  the  yoke  of 
antichristian  bondage." 

Four  years  later  (1607),  the  people  who  ^vere  thus  intent 
upon  "the  positive  and  practical  part  of  divine  institutions," 
became  "two  distinct  bodies  or  churches"  for  the  sake  of 
convenience  in  holding  their  assemblies ;  inasmuch  as  their 
homes  were  dispersed  over  a  territory  too  wnde  for  their 
meeting  in  one  place,  especially  in  those  times.  After  the 
division,  one  of  the  two  churches  met,  ordinarily,  in  the 
manor-house  of  Scrooby.  As  at  Colosse  there  was  a  church 
in  the  house  of  Philemon,  and  at  Laodicea  a  church  in  the 
house  of  Nymphas — as  at  Corinth  there  was  a  church  in  the 
house  of  Aquila  and  Priscilla,  and  afterward  another  in  their 
house  at  Rome,  when  they  had  removed  their  residence  to 
the  imperial  city^ — so  this  church,  instituted  without  asking 
Caesar's  permission,  might  have  been  called  the  church  that 
is  in  the  house  of  William  Brewster.  There  was  the  germ 
of  New  England. 

Through  many  generations  that  place  of  meeting  was  un- 

*  Pliilem.  2:  Col.  iv..  15:   1  Cor.  xvi.,  li):  Rom.  xvi.,  5. 


202  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  X. 

known.  Early  historians  had  described  it  in  general  terms 
as  on  the  borders  of  three  counties,  had  (by  a  misprint) 
named  "  Ansterfield  "  as  Bradford's  birthplace,  and  had  said 
that  Brewster's  house  was  "  a  manor  of  the  bishop's,"  but 
had  not  mentioned  Scrooby  by  name.  Only  a  few  years 
ago,  the  place  was  identified  beyond  all  doubt  by  an  English 
antiquary. 1  The  village  church  of  Scrooby  is  there,  as  in  the 
old  time,  with  its  gray  spire.  The  little  river  Idle  winds  its 
way  over  the  plain.  Rich  crops  of  grain,  in  fields  divided 
by  green  hedges,  testify  that  now,  as  of  old,  the  people  are 
employed  in  "  the  innocent  trade  of  husbandry."  The  hamlet 
of  Austerfield  is  only  two  or  three  miles  away,  its  little 
"chapelry  "  (where,  as  the  record  testifies,  "William  the  son 
of  William  Bradfourth  was  baptized  in  March,  1590")  just 
out  of  sight  behind  the  trees.  On  the  lower  grounds,  once 
marshy  and  waste,  and  inhabited  by  wild  fowl  and  other 
game,  but  now  reclaimed,  are  green  meadows  wdth  grazing 
cattle.  Close  by  the  village,  divided  from  its  little  garden 
patches  by  an  ancient  moat  now  dry,  are  the  traces  of  the 
old  Scrooby  manor,  though  the  building  has  passed  away. 

As  long  ago  as  the  age  of  William  the  Conqueror,  the 
place  belonged  to  the  archbishops  of  York ;  and  from  early 
times  it  was  an  occasional  residence  of  theirs — a  hunting- 
lodge,  or  a  resting-place  in  their  journeys.  Sometimes  it  re- 
ceived royal  visitors.  Margaret,  Queen  of  Scotland,  daughter 
of  Henry  VII.  of  England,  lodged  there  for  a  night  on  her 
way  to  her  husband. ^     Cardinal  Wolsey,  when,  having  lost 

^  Kev.  .Joseph  Hunter,  of  London,  published  in  1849  a  pamphlet  entitled, 
"The  Founders  of  New  Plymouth."  Since  that  publication,  Scrooby  and 
the  historic  localities  of  its  neighborhood  have  been  sought  out  by  many  a 
reverent  pilgrim.  That  beautifully  illustrated  volume,  "The  Pilgrim  Fa- 
thers," by  the  artist  W.  H.Bartlett,  has  made  many  of  the  places  associated 
with  the  story  of  the  leathers  familiar  to  the  eyes  of  their  descendants. 

^  James  I.  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  England  because  that  English 
princess,  Queen  Elizabeth's  aunt  Margaret,  was  his  grandmother,  and  ev- 
ery British  monarch  since  that  time  has  been  her  descendant.     The  latest 


A.D.  1607.]  THE    CHURCH    AT   SCROOBY.  203 

the  favor  of  his  sovereign,  he  was  sent  from  court  to  his  dio- 
cese of  York,  lingered  for  weeks  at  Scrooby ;  and  there  that 
sovereign  himself,  Henry  VIII. ,  lodged  not  long  afterward. 
It  seems  a  strange  thing  that  a  mansion  so  stately,  and  with 
such  a  history,  became  the  meeting-place  of  a  Separatist 
church  in  which  every  worshiper  was  liable  to  penalties  of 
fine  and  imprisonment. 

Queen  Elizabeth's  zeal  for  the  Church  of  England,  as  an 
institution  of  which  she  was  the  supreme  ruler,  did  not  al- 
ways restrain  her  from  coveting,  in  behalf  of  her  courtiers, 
its  superfluous  endowments.  Sometimes  a  bishop  was  in- 
duced by  a  request  from  the  queen — or,  if  the  request  were 
ineflectual,  by  a  peremptory  letter  threatening  with  an  oath 
that  she  would  "unfrock"  him — to  alienate  a  town  residence, 
or  a  manor,  or  some  other  valuable  property,  by  means  of  a 
lease,  perpetual  or  for  a  long  term  of  years,  to  whomsoever 
her  majesty  had  undertaken  to  befriend  in  that  way.  Thus 
Cox,  bishop  of  Ely,  was  compelled  to  surrender  his  towm 
garden  to  the  queen's  favorite,  Hatton.  Samuel  Sandys, 
archbishop  of  York — a  prelate  who  had  Puritan  sympathies 
— stood  out  bravely  against  a  demand  for  "  the  great  manors 
of  Southwell  and  Scrooby,"  and  for  some  reason  was  not 
coerced  into  submission.  He  declared  that  "the  granting 
of  such  a  lease  would  highly  displease  God,  kill  his  con- 
science, and  spoil  the  church  of  York."  Some  years  after- 
ward he  made  a  similar  resistance  when  a  similar  demand 


English  ancestor  of  the  queen  now  reigning  was  that  same  sister  of  Henry 
VIII.  James  I.  was  a  Scotchman,  and  his  wife  a  Dane.  Their  daughter, 
Elizabeth  Stuart,  married  a  German,  the  Elector  Palatine ;  and  she  became, 
through  the  German  marriage  of  her  daughter  Sophia,  the  grandmother  of 
George  I.  The  dynasty  of  the  Georges  was  purely  German,  save  only  the 
drop  of  English  blood  which  came  from  Margaret.  Queen  Victoria's  mother 
was  a  German.  Her  husband  was  a  German  ;  and  the  Prince  of  Wales — so 
far  as  lineage  and  blood  can  determine  a  man's  nationality — is  hardly  more 
an  Englishman  than  the  son  of  naturalized  Celtic  parents  is  a  Yankee  by 
virtue  of  his  having  been  born  in  New  England. 


204  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND   CHURCHES.         [CH.  X. 

was  made  for  his  house  in  London.  "  These  be  marvelous 
times,"  said  he;  "the  patrimony  of  the  church  is  laid  open 
as  a  prey  to  all  the  world."  Accordingly,  it  was  inscribed 
on  his  monument,  in  sonorous  Latin,  that  "he  defended  the 
patrimony  of  the  church  as  a  thing  consecrated  to  God."  ^ 
Yet  it  is  among  the  mysterious  incidents  of  the  Elizabethan 
reformation  that  by  this  same  archbishop,  who  so  heroically 
defended  "  the  church's  patrimony  "  against  the  importunity 
of  the  queen  herself,  the  manor  of  Scrooby — with  its  parks, 
mills,  and  woods  —  after  having  been  for  more  than  five 
hundred  years  a  possession  of  the  church,  was  leased  to 
his  eldest  son.  Sir  Samuel  Sandys.^  Under  him  the  stately 
house,  which  had  been  "  a  manor  of  the  bishops,"  was  occu- 
pied by  William  Brewster.  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  another  son 
of  the  archbishop,  was  a  friend  of  Brewster  in  later  years, 
and  was  doubtless  acquainted  with  him  before  the  downfall 
of  Secretary  Davison. ^  It  may  have  been  by  the  friendship 
of  Sir  Edwin  that  Brewster,  after  losing  his  place  at  court 
by  the  unmerited  disgrace  of  his  patron,  came  to  reside  at 
Scrooby  as  a  servant  of  the  queen,  and  so  became,  like  Gains 
at  Corinth,  "  the  host  of  the  whole  church."  As  his  guests 
the  little  church  assembled  on  the  Lord's  day — its  members 
dropping  in  quietly,  one  by  one,  or  two  or  three  in  company, 
careful  not  to  attract  too  much  attention,  till  some  fit  apart- 
ment of  the  great  mansion  was  filled  with  worshipers.  Long 
afterward,  and  far  away,  they  remembered  their  meetings  in 
his  house,  and  that  "  with  great  love  he  entertained  them 
when  they  came,  making  provision  for  them  to  his  great 
charge." 

How  came  there  to  be,  just  there,  the   materials   out  of 


^  Strype,  "  Whitgift, "  i.,  286,  287  ;    "  Annals,"  iii.,  pt.  ii.,  550,  551 . 

2  Steele,  "  Chief  of  the  Pilgrims,"  p.  106. 

^  George  Cranmer,  a  grand-nephew  of  Archbishop  Cranmer,  was  Sir  Ed- 
win's very  intimate  friend  at  Oxford  and  in  travels  on  the  Continent,  and  was 
associated  with  Brewster  in  the  service  of  Secretary  Davison. 


A.D.  1600-1607.]         THE    CHURCH    AT   SCEOOBY.  205 

which  these  two  congregations  of  Separatists  could  be  gath- 
ered ?  We  can  understand  more  readily  the  growth  of  an 
advanced  Protestantism  in  London,  and  in  other  centres  of 
influence  and  of  intercourse ;  but  how  came  there  to  be  in 
these  rural  parishes  and  scattered  villages,  among  a  people 
so  remote  from  the  places  where  agitation  and  progress 
would  be  natural,  so  much  of  thought  on  religious  themes, 
so  much  of  spiritual  quickening,  so  much  of  movement  to- 
ward ecclesiastical  liberty  ?  Are  not  these  the  people  who 
might  be  expected  either  to  hold  fast  the  ancient  supersti- 
tions, or  to  accept,  without  a  murmur  of  inquiry,  whatever 
may  be  determined  by  the  queen?  The  question  is  an- 
swered when  the  chronicler  tells  us  of  the  "  godly  and  zeal- 
ous preachers"  who  had  propagated  in  those  parts  the  doc- 
trines of  the  religious  reformation.  It  was  by  the  preaching 
of  that  ancient  Gospel,  "  repentance  toward  God  and  faith 
toward  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  that  so  many  of  the  plain 
country  people,  far  away  from  the  court  and  the  universities 
and  from  the  great  trading  towns,  had  become  thoughtful 
students  of  the  Bible,  earnestly  inquiring  after  God's  truth, 
and  resolutely  determined  on  personal  reformation  at  what- 
ever cost.  It  happens  that  we  know  w^ho  and  what  some  of 
those  preachers  were. 

We  have  seen^  that  in  the  early  years  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
under  the  reaction  against  the  atrocities  of  the  preceding 
reign  and  the  manifold  necessity  of  making  England  a  Prot- 
estant country,  there  was  some  measure  of  connivance,  on  the 
part  of  the  government,  at  the  ecclesiastical  irregularities  of 
clergymen  whose  Protestantism  protested  against  the  "rags 
of  popery."  In  various  dioceses  the  bishops  were  themselves 
Puritans  in  theory,  though  they  accepted  for  the  time  the 
existing  regulations.  Under  some  such  influences  in  the 
dioceses  of  York  and  Lincoln,  evangelical  Protestantism,  as  it 
would  now  be  called,  took  deep  root  and  spread  itself  among 


^  Ante,  chap.  iv. 

o 


206  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  X. 

the  people.  But  when  the  queen  began  to  be  more  urgent 
in  her  demand  for  the  strictest  and  minutest  uniformity  in 
ecclesiastical  ceremonies  and  vestments,  and  when  the  first 
generation  of  her  bishops — of  whom  many  had  been  confess- 
ors and  exiles  for  the  Protestant  faith  —  began  to  be  suc- 
ceeded by  men  of  another  sort,  then  it  was  that  "  the  minis- 
ters," the  "godly  and  zealous  preachers,"  were  "urged  with 
the  yoke  of  subscription  or  else  must  be  silenced,"  were  sum- 
moned into  the  ecclesiastical  courts  to  give  account  of  their 
ritual  irregularities,  were  fined,  were  imprisoned,  were  de- 
prived of  their  livings;  and  then  it  was  that  the  noncon- 
forming laity  also  found  themselves  at  the  mercy  of  malig- 
nant informers,  and  "were  so  vexed  with  apparitors  and 
pursuivants  and  the  commissary  courts  as  truly  their  afilic- 
tion  was  not  small."  Then,  too,  it  was  that  some  of  the 
preachers,  and  some  of  their  hearers  and  converts,  began  to 
advance  from  Puritanism  into  Separatism. 

One  of  those  clergymen  was  John  Smyth,  who  had  been 
a  fellow  in  one  of  the  colleges  at  Cambridge,  and  had  there 
been  put  upon  his  defense  before  the  Vice-Chancellor  of  the 
University  for  having  affirmed  in  a  sermon  the  unlawfulness 
of  sports  on  the  Lord's  day.  He  appears  to  have  been  a 
preacher  (probably  a  lecturer)  in  the  city  of  Lincoln,  and  aft- 
erward to  have  held  a  benefice  at  Gainsborough,  about  twelve 
miles  distant  from  Scrooby.  He  is  described  as  "  a  man  of  able 
gifts,  and  a  good  preacher ;"  but  not  many  of  the  Puritans 
were  more  likely  than  he  to  come  into  collision  with  the  eccle- 
siastical authorities,  or  to  be  deprived  and  silenced.  Progress 
from  Puritanism  into  separation  was  natural  to  such  a  mind 
as  his,  especially  under  the  stimulus  of  persecution ;  but  he 
is  said  to  have  spent  nine  months  in  study  of  the  questions 
about  conformity,  and  to  have  held  a  disputation  with  some 
of  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  Puritan  divines  on  those 
questions,  before  his  renunciation  of  the  National  Church. 
He  was  chosen  pastor  of  one  of  the  two  Separatist  churches 
— the  one  which  ordinarily  met  at  Gainsborougli. 


A. D.  1607.]  THE    CHUKCH    AT   SCKOOBY.  207 

Another  of  the  "godly  and  zealous  preachers"  was  Rich- 
ard Clyfton,  who  had  been  vicar  of  Marnham,  near  Newark, 
in  Nottinghamshire,  and  afterward  rector  of  Babworth,  a 
village  not  far  from  Scrooby.  His  ministry  at  Babworth 
began  about  twenty  years  before  the  Scrooby  church  was 
instituted.  Bradford,  whose  early  religious  experience  was 
associated  with  his  ministry,  affectionately  testifies  that  he 
"  by  his  pains  and  diligence  had  done  much  good,  and  under 
God  had  been  a  means  of  the  conversion  of  many."  That 
"grave  and  reverend  preacher,"  having  been  j)ushed  on  from 
Nonconformity  to  Separation,  was  chosen  pastor  of  the 
Scrooby  church ;  and  very  naturally,  for  that  church  must 
have  consisted  chiefly  of  those  who  already  loved  and  hon- 
ored him  for  his  work's  sake. 

With  him  was  associated,  in  the  ofiice  of  teacher,  a  young 
man  about  twenty-five  years  of  age,  born  in  that  part  of  En- 
gland, a  Master  of  Arts  in  the  University  of  Cambridge,  and 
recently  a  fellow  of  Corpus  Christi  College  there,  who,  aft- 
er leaving  the  university,  had  received  "deacon's  orders" 
in  the  Church  of  England,  and  had  performed  some  work  as 
a  minister  of  Christ  in  the  city  of  Norwich  and  elsewhere  in 
the  county  of  Norfolk.  That  younger  minister — "  a  man  of 
a  learned,  polished,  and  modest  spirit,  pious  and  studious  of 
the  truth,  largely  accomplished  with  suitable  gifts  and  quali- 
fications " — bore  the  name  which  has  become  so  venerable  in 
the  history  of  New  England,  John  Robinson.  Certainly  it 
was  a  rare  privilege  given  to  that  little  band  of  worshipers 
that,  while  they  had  the  experienced  Clyfton  for  their  pastor, 
ministering  to  them  in  their  assemblies  the  word  of  consola- 
tion, they  had  also  for  their  teacher,  ministering  the  word  of 
doctrine,  a  man  so  gifted  as  Robinson,  and  of  so  sweet  and 
loving  a  spirit. 

At  a  later  period,  the  judicious  and  large-minded  Brew- 
ster— the  man  whose  diversified  experience  in  affairs,  as  well 
as  his  general  culture  and  his  weight  of  character,  had  most 
conspicuously  qualified  him  for  the  presidency  in  that  Chris- 


208  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CIIUECHES.        [CH.  X. 

tian  community,  though  he  did  not  recognize  in  himself  any 
special  vocation  to  the  ministry  of  the  word — was  chosen  to 
he  ruling  elder;  and  thus  the  threefold  eldership  in  the 
church — pastor,  teacher,  and  ruler — the  presbytery  within  the 
church,  not  outside  of  it  and  over  it — was  completed. 

But  such  proceedings  as  these,  the  definite  organization  of 
two  distinct  churches  near  to  each  other,  and  their  stated  as- 
semblies for  worship — however  conformable  to  apostolic  prec- 
edents and  to  the  law  of  Christ  —  were  obviously  contrary 
to  the  Act  of  Uniformity.  The  policy  which  would  have  no 
church  in  England  but  the  state  church,  and  no  worship  but 
that  which  James  Stuart  had  authorized,  could  not  endure 
such  an  assertion  of  religious  liberty.  No  matter  how  peace- 
able and  quiet,  or  how  blameless  in  other  respects,  the  men 
might  be  who  dared  to  associate  themselves  under  the  law 
of  Christ  "  as  the  Lord's  free  people,"  they  were  insubordi- 
nate under  the  hierarchy  which  Queen  Elizabeth  had  estab- 
lished, and  which  her  successor  was  resolved  to  maintain. 

The  story  of  what  their  undertaking  cost  them  begins  with 
their  experience  of  more  violent  persecution.  It  could  not 
be  expected  that  their  definite  organization  of  churches  re- 
nouncing all  dependence  on  the  hierarchy  or  the  state,  and 
their  stated  meeting  on  the  Lord's  day  for  worship  in  a  man- 
ner forbidden  by  the  ruling  powers,  would  escape  the  notice 
of  their  enemies.  Of  course,  they  found  themselves  "  hunted 
and  persecuted  on  every  side  ;"  for  they  had  none  to  befriend 
them.  "  Some  were  taken  and  clapped  up  in  prison,  others 
had  their  houses  beset  and  watched  night  and  day  [by  ap- 
paritors and  pursuivants],  and  hardly  escaped  their  hands ; 
and  the  most  were  fain  to  flee,  and  leave  their  houses  and 
habitations  and  the  means  of  their  livelihood."  All  this  was 
no  more  than  what  their  minds,  strong  in  faith,  and  willing 
to  suiFer  for  Christ,  were  in  some  sort  prepared  for.  But  it 
soon  became  a  grave  question  how  long  all  this  could  be  en- 
dured. They  could  not  but  inquire  what  refuge  there  was 
for  their  church,  the  organization  in  which  their  testimony 


A.D.  1607.]  THE    CHUECH    AT    SCEOOBY.  209 

for  Christ  and  Christian  liberty  was  erabodied.  Only  a  few 
leagues  distant  from  the  eastern  shore  of  England,  just  op- 
posite the  low  and  fenny  lands  of  Lincolnshire,  there  was  a 
country  where,  if  they  were  willing  to  lose  all  things  else, 
they  might  enjoy  their  religious  convictions.  In  the  United 
States  of  the  Netherlands,  as  the  Dutch  republic  was  then 
called,  there  was  "  a  church  without  a  bishop  and  a  state 
without  a  king;"  and  there  they  might  find  "freedom  to 
worship  God."  They  had  "heard  that  in  the  Low  Countries 
was  freedom  of  religion  for  all  men;  as  also  how  sundry, 
from  London  and  other  parts  of  the  land,  had  been  exiled 
and  persecuted  for  the  same  cause  and  were  gone  thither." 
Why  might  they  not  make  that  foreign  land  their  refuge  till 
better  times  should  come  in  England?  "  By  a  joint  consent, 
they  resolved  to  go  into  the  Low  Countries."  Not  as  indi- 
vidual exiles,  fleeing  in  all  directions  on  the  plan  of  "  save 
himself  who  can ;"  but  as  a  church,  for  which  their  native 
country  had  no  place  of  rest,  they  were  to  go  beyond  the 
sea.  For  about  a  year  from  the  date  of  the  friendly  division 
into  two  distinct  churches,  they  had  continued  to  meet  on 
the  first  day  of  the  week,  though  not  always  in  Brewster's 
house,  and  had,  in  that  respect,  baftled  the  diligent  malice  of 
their  adversaries;  but  they  could  do  so  no  longer,  and  they 
must  get  over  into  Holland  as  they  could. 

It  was  a  brave  resolve,  for  they  knew  the  meaning  of  it. 
"To  go  into  a  country  they  knew  not  but  by  hearsay,  where 
they  must  learn  a  new  language,  and  get  their  livings  they 
knew  not  how,"  and  where  many  years  of  war  had  made  all 
the  necessaries  of  life  oppressively  dear — seemed  "  an  advent- 
ure almost  desperate."  Moreover,  they  "had  only  been 
used  to  a  plain  country  life  and  the  innocent  trade  of  hus- 
bandry ;"  and  they  were  to  take  their  chances  among  a  peo- 
ple subsisting  by  manufactures  and  commerce.  "But  these 
things  did  not  dismay  them,  although  they  did  sometimes 
trouble  them ;  for  their  desires  were  set  on  the  ways  of  God, 
and  to  enjoy  his  ordinances.     They  rested  on  his  providence. 


210  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.        [ciI.  X. 

and  knew  whom  they  had  believed."  So  beautifully  did 
they  obey  the  precept,  "In  all  thy  ways,  acknowledge  God;" 
and,  more  wisely  and  lovingly  than  they  knew,  the  promise 
was  jDcrformed — "  He  will  direct  thy  paths." 

That  resolve,  however,  was  not  easily  carried  into  effect; 
"  for,  though  they  could  not  stay,  yet  were  they  not  suffered 
to  go."  On  the  one  hand,  the  "Act  to  retain  the  queen's 
subjects  in  obedience"  would  not  permit  them  to  stay;  for 
under  it  their  goods  would  be  forfeited,  and  they  would  be 
compelled  to  abjure  the  realm.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
statesmanship  which  said  of  the  Puritans,  "  I  will  make  them 
conform,  or  I  will  harry  them  out  of  this  land,"  was  afraid 
that  Nonconformists,  when  "harried"  out  of  England,  would 
take  refuge  in  American  wildernesses;  and  therefore  a  royal 
proclamation  had  been  issued  forbidding  Englishmen  to 
transport  themselves  into  Virginia  without  a  license.^  Prob- 
ably it  was  by  force  of  that  proclamation  that  the  ports  were 
shut  against  Separatists  seeking  to  escape  into  Holland,  for 
what  security  was  there  that  they  would  not  find  their  way 
from  Holland  to  Virginia?  Liable  as  such  persons  were  to 
banishment,  they  must  not  be  permitted  to  banish  them- 
selves. They  were  constrained  to  smuggle  themselves  out 
of  their  own  country  as  if  they  had  been  runaway  slaves. 

Boston  (or,  if  "  writ  large,"  St.  Botolph's  town),  in  Lincoln- 
shire, about  fifty  miles  distant  from  their  homes,  was  the 
port  from  which  a  large  company  of  them  intended  to  sail. 
Brewster  was  one  of  them.  He  had  relinquished  his  office 
(Sept.,  1607),  and,  having  prepared  his  books  and  other  chat- 
tels for  transportation,  he  bade  farewell  to  Scrooby.  He  and 
his  friends  had  hired  a  vessel  for  their  purpose,  and  had  ar- 
ranged with  the  master  for  their  embarkation  at  an  appoint- 
ed time  and  place.  The  shipmaster  proved  himself  a  knave. 
First,  he  involved  them  in  delay  and  expense  by  not  being 
ready  at  the  time.     Afterward,  when  he  had  them  and  their 

^  Palfrey,  "  History  of  New  England,"  i.,  138. 


A.D.  1607.]  THE    CHURCH    AT   SCROOBY.  211 

goods  on  board,  he  betrayed  them  into  the  hands  of  their  en- 
emies, with  whom  he  had  conspired  against  them.  It  was 
night ;  for  the  emigrants  were  hoping  to  escape  into  exile 
*  under  cover  of  darkness.  But  just  as  they  began  to  feel  that 
they  were  safe  —  the  sliip  riding  at  anchor  —  and  that  soon 
they  would  be  beyond  the  reach  of  apparitors  and  pursui- 
vants, they  were  arrested,  taken  from  the  ship  into  open 
boats,  rifled  of  whatever  they  had  about  them,  and  searched 
to  their  shirts  by  ruflianly  officers,  who  even  insulted  the  mod- 
esty of  the  w^omen.  In  the  morning  they  were  brought  back 
into  the  town, "  a  spectacle  and  wonder  to  the  multitude  who 
came  flocking  on  all  sides  to  behold  them,"  and  were  pre- 
sented to  the  magistrates.  It  does  not  appear  that  Separat- 
ism had  made  any  lodgment  in  Boston  ;  but  Puritanism  was 
almost  dominant  there.  Ecclesiastical  officers  other  than 
simply  ministers  of  the  Gospel  were  not  held  in  high  esteem, 
and  the  persecution  of  honest  and  religious  people  for  non- 
conformity was  not  much  encouraged  by  citizens  of  the  bet- 
ter sort  in  that  old  borough.  So  when  the  captured  Sepa- 
ratists were  brought  before  the  civic  magistrates,  they  were 
treated  with  respect,  and  would  have  been  set  at  liberty,  had 
not  messengers  been  already  sent  to  the  lords  of  the  council 
w^ith  information  of  so  important  an  arrest.  After  a  month 
of  imprisonment,  the  messengers  having  had  time  to  go  and 
return,  Brewster  and  six  others  were  bound  over  for  trial 
and  detained  in  prison,  while  the  others  were  discharged. 
What  came  of  the  trial,  and  how  long  those  seven  remained 
in  prison,  does  not  appear. 

Some  men  would  have  been  quite  vanquished  by  such  a  de- 
feat. It  was  not  so  with  these  men.  About  six  months  lat- 
er, having  quietly  recruited  their  strength  and  renewed  their 
preparation  for  removal,  they  made  another  attempt.  In 
some  w^ay  they  had  been  brought  into  communication  with 
a  Dutchman  at  Hull,  who  had  a  ship  of  his  own  under  the 
Dutch  flag.  Finding  reason  to  trust  him,  they  frankly  in- 
formed him  of  their  condition,  and  made  an  agreement  with 


212  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  X. 

him  for  their  passage  over  to  his  country.  He  was  to  take 
them  on  board  at  a  point  on  the  Huraber  between  Hull  and 
Grimsby.  The  place,  "  a  large  common,  a  good  way  distant 
from  any  town,"  seemed  to  promise  them  a  safe  embarkation.  • 
When  the  appointed  time  drew  near,  the  women  and  chil- 
dren of  the  company,  with  the  goods,  were  sent,  probably 
from  Hull,  in  a  small  bark  which  had  been  hired  for  the  pur- 
pose ;  and  the  men  went  by  land  to  meet  them.  They  were 
a  day  too  early  for  the  ship ;  and  as  the  sea,  driven  by  an 
easterly  wind,  rolled  up  the  broad  Humber,  the  women  were 
distressed  with  sea-sickness,  and  for  their  relief  the  little  craft 
put  into  a  creek  hard  by,  where  the  outgoing  tide  left  her 
aground.  The  ship  came  early  the  next  day ;  but  the  bark, 
with  so  many  of  the  passengers  and  all  the  freight,  was  fast 
in  the  mud,  and  must  wait  till  about  noon  for  the  tide. 
Meanwhile  the  skipper,  to  save  time,  sent  his  boat  for  the 
men,  whom  he  saw  walking  about  on  the  shore.  But  when 
the  boat  had  gone  once  and  returned  full  of  passengers,  and 
was  ready  to  go  the  second  time — behold  !  "  a  great  compa- 
ny, both  horse  and  foot,  with  bills  and  guns  and  other  weap- 
ons !"  The  dangerous  fugitives  had  been  tracked,  and  the 
posse  comitatus  had  been  called  out  to  capture  them.  It 
was  beginning  to  be  a  serious  affair  for  the  captain  and  his 
ship  as  well  as  for  his  intended  passengers.  To  him  the  sight 
of  that  armed  force,  "  horse  and  foot,"  was  a  suggestion  of 
seizure  and  of  proceedings  in  admiralty.  Thereupon  he  swore 
a  great  Dutch  oath,  "  and,  having  the  wind  fair,  weighed  his 
anchor,  hoisted  sails,  and  away."  No  time  had  he  for  con- 
sidering what  the  condition  would  be  of  the  few  passengers 
— one  boat-load — whom  he  had  on  board.  There  they  were, 
suddenly  and  helplessly  parted  from  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren, whom  they  saw^  falling  into  the  hands  of  enemies. 
They  had  nothing  for  their  voyage — nothing  for  their  settle- 
ment in  a  foreign  country,  save  the  clothes  they  wore :  all 
that  they  had  prepared  for  their  removal  being  on  board  the 
bark.      But  "there  was  no  remedy:  they  must  thus  sadly 


A.D.  1608.]  THE    CIIUKCH    AT   SCEOOBY.  213 

part."  The  men  who  were  left  on  shore  escaped  the  pursu- 
ers ;  those  only  remaining  whose  presence  might  be  some  pro- 
tection or  help  to  the  women.  "  But  pitiful  it  was  to  see  the 
heavy  case  of  these  poor  women — what  weeping  and  crying 
on  every  side  ;  some  for  their  husbands  that  were  carried 
away  in  the  ship ;  others  not  knowing  what  should  become  of 
them  and  their  little  ones ;  others,  again,  melted  in  tears,  see- 
ing their  poor  little  ones  hanging  about  them,  crying  for  fear 
and  quaking  w4th  cold."  But,  after  all,  the  capture  of  so 
many  women  and  children  was  no  great  achievement.  It 
was  something  that  the  emigrating  expedition  had  been  de- 
feated ;  but  what  were  the  captors  to  do  with  their  captives? 
After  going  from  one  justice  to  another  in  vain,  they  began 
to  be  embarrassed.  "  To  imprison  so  many  women  and  inno- 
cent children  for  no  other  cause  (many  of  them)  but  that 
they  must  go  with  their  husbands,  seemed  to  be  unreasona- 
ble, and  all  Avould  cry  out  of  them ;  and  to  send  them  home 
again  was  as  difficult,"  for  their  homes  had  been  broken  up 
in  order  to  their  migration.  "  In  the  end  necessity  forced  a 
way  for  them,"  and  they  were  released  without  being  impris- 
oned. 

Meanwhile  the  few  men — "the  first  boat-load" — carried 
away  in  the  ship  against  their  will  were  driven  by  a  tempest, 
far  northward,  to  the  coast  of  Norway.  Instead  of  the  few 
hours  which  should  have  sufficed  for  their  voyage  to  Hol- 
land, they  were  fourteen  days  at  sea ;  and  for  seven  days 
"they  saw  neither  sun,  moon,  nor  stars."  At  one  time  the 
ship  seemed  to  be  foundering,  and  the  sailors  despaired.  But 
she  righted  in  a  moment,  and  just  then  the  storm  began  to 
abate.  It  was  only  after  such  perils  that  they  arrived  at 
their  destination.  Bradford,  who  was  one  of  them,  retained 
in  his  old  age  a  vivid  remembrance  of  that  voyage — how  ear- 
nestly and  believingly  they  prayed  while  the  tempest  was 
roaring ;  and  how,  "  when  man's  hope  and  help  failed,  the 
Lord's  power  and  mercy  appeared"  for  them.  "Blessed  are 
the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God."     They,  iu  the  sim- 


214  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  X. 

plicity  of  their  trust  and  the  purity  of  their  devout  affection, 
saw  God  in  the  tempest,  and  to  him  they  cried.  They  saw 
him  in  the  cahn  ;  and  he  "  filled  their  afflicted  minds  with 
such  comforts  as  every  one  can  not  understand."  No  scien- 
tist of  to-day  believes  in  the  immutability  of  natural  law  and 
the  conservation  of  force  more  firmly  than  they  believed  in 
the  immutability  of  the  divine  purposes.  In  their  theory  of 
the  universe,  the  storm  and  the  hush,  the  billows  and  the 
ship  that  rode  upon  their  surges,  the  peril  and  the  deliver- 
ance, were  equally  determined  from  eternity.  They  did  not 
expect  that  their  words,  thrown  out  upon  the  wind,  would 
change  God's  purpose ;  yet  they  prayed,  for,  to  their  thought, 
the  prayer  was  itself  included  in  the  decree  of  the  Ineffable 
Love  that  had  loved  them  from  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world.  Scientists  may  perplex  themselves  about  what  pray- 
er has  to  do  with  events,  for  science  knows  only  w-hat  is 
limited  by  time  and  space  ;  but  faith,  taking  hold  of  the  in- 
finite, and  recognizing  in  events  the  evolution  of  an  eternal 
thought  and  purpose,  walks  with  God,  speaks  to  him,  listens 
for  his  voice,  accepts  his  determinations,  and  sees  him  even 
in  "  the  stormy  wind  fulfilling  his  word." 

Baffled  in  tw^o  attempts,  the  members  of  the  Scrooby  church 
seem  to  have  abandoned  their  plan  of  emigrating  in  a  body, 
as  Israel  went  out  of  Egypt.  Some  of  their  most  active 
men  having  been,  by  the  last  disaster,  carried  into  Holland, 
were  able  to  serve  as  pioneers  for  the  company,  and  to  make 
such  arrangements  for  them  as  were  possible  after  their  loss- 
es. Amsterdam  was  the  rendezvous  of  the  fugitives  as  they 
made  their  escape  out  of  England,  one  by  one,  or  in  fam- 
ilies. "  In  the  end,  they  all  got  over,  some  at  one  time  and 
some  at  another,  and  met  together  again  with  no  small  re- 
joicing." Meanwhile,  by  the  troubles  they  had  suffered, "  their 
cause  became  famous."  Their  Christian  behavior  under  per- 
secution "left  a  deep  impression  on  the  minds  of  many."  In 
many  a  thoughtful  mind  the  inquiry  w^as  raised, "  Who  and 
what  are  these  men  ?     What  evil  have  they  done  ?     What 


A.D.  1608.]  THE    CHURCH    AT    SCEOOBY.  215 

is  it  for  which  they  suffer  so  meekly,  and  yet  so  persever- 
ingly?" 

Who  and  what  were  they  ?  Whatever  ecclesiastical  or 
political  prejudice  against  tliem  may  linger  in  some  quarters, 
no  intelligent  reader  of  history  can  think  of  them  as  frantic 
enthusiasts,  as  dupes  of  knavish  leaders,  or  as  in  any  way 
dangerous  members  of  society.  Some  of  them  were  men 
trained  at  the  English  universities,  and  skilled  in  the  learn- 
ing and  the  controversies  of  their  time.  Some  w^ere  not  with- 
out experience  of  life  in  the  great  world,  and  in  connection 
with  public  affairs ;  others  were  plain  people  of  the  old  En- 
glish yeomanry,  who  had  lived  on  their  hereditary  acres — 
the  type  and  original  of  our  Xew  England  farmers.  All  had 
gained  the  intelligence  that  comes  from  the  diligent  study 
of  the  Bible,  and  all  were  honest  and  earnest  believers  in  the 
Christ  of  the  New  Testament.  Such  were  the  men  and  the 
women  who  were  thus  driven  out  of  tlieir  native  England, 
yet  hunted  and  intercepted  in  their  flight,  as  if  they  were 
criminals  escaping  from  justice.  Why  did  they  suffer  the 
spoiling  of  their  goods,  arrest,  imprisonment,  exile  ?  Their 
only  crime  was  that,  while  they  rendered  to  Coesar  the  things 
that  are  Csesar's,  they  would  not  render  to  Ciesar  the  things 
that  are  God's.  They  had  caught  from  the  Bible  the  idea  of 
a  church  independent  alike  of  the  pope  and  the  queen,  in- 
dependent of  Parliament  as  well  as  of  prelates,  and  depend- 
ent only  on  Christ.  It  was  their  mission  to  work  out  and 
organize  that  idea ;  and,  in  so  doing,  they  wrought  and  suf- 
fered for  their  posterity  in  all  ages  and  for  the  world. 


216  GENESIS    OF   THE   NEW    ENGLAND   CHUECIIES.      [CH.  XI. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE    SEPARATISTS    IN    AMSTERDAM. 

The  Separatists  of  Scrooby,  having  made  their  escape 
from  their  native  country,  had  become  literally  "  strangers 
and  pilgrims  on  the  earth."  Holland  was  to  them  only  "a 
strange  country,"  not  the  land  of  promise.  In  Bradford's 
report  of  the  impressions  which  that  country  made  upon 
them  when  they  saw  it,  there  is  a  picturesque  effect  which 
shows  how  he  felt  as  one  of  them.  He  was  at  that  time 
a  youth  of  not  more  than  twenty  years  —  a  plain  north- 
country  Englishman,  whose  knowledge  of  the  world  beyond 
the  seas  was  only  so  much  as  he  had  been  able  to  gain 
from  vague  report  with  the  aid  of  a  few  books,  and  who 
had  probably  never  seen  any  larger  town  than  Boston,  in 
Lincolnshire,  and  Hull,  in  Yorkshire.  His  own  words,  for 
himself  and  his  fellow-exiles,  are  the  best  in  which  to  tell 
the  story: 

"  Being  now  come  into  the  Low  Countries,  they  saw  many 
goodly  and  fortified  cities,  strongly  walled,  and  guarded 
with  troops  of  armed  men.  Also  they  heard  a  strange  and 
uncouth  language,  and  beheld  the  different  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  the  people,  with  their  strange  fashions  and  attires; 
all  so  far  differing  from  that  of  their  plain  country  villages, 
wherein  they  were  bred  and  had  so  long  lived,  as  it  seemed 
they  were  come  into  a  new  world.  But  these  were  not  the 
things  they  much  looked  on,  or  which  long  took  up  their 
thoughts  ;  for  they  had  other  work  in  hand,  and  another 
kind  of  war  to  wage  and  maintain.  For  though  they  saw 
fair  and  beautiful  cities  flowing  with  abundance  of  all  sorts 
of  wealth  and  riches,  it  was  not  long  before  they  saw  the 
grim  and  grisly  face  of  poverty  coming  upon  them  like  an 


A.D.  1G08.]  THE    SEPARATISTS    IN    AMSTERDAM.  217 

armed  man,  with  whom  they  must  buckle  and  encounter,  and 
from  whom  they  could  not  fly.  But  they  were  armed  with 
faith  and  patience  against  liim ;  and  though  they  w^ere  some- 
times foiled,  yet,  by  God's  assistance,  they  prevailed  and  got 
the  victory." 

They  were  not  entirely  without  friends  in  Amsterdam, 
the  place  of  their  first  residence  after  their  migration. 
Others  of  their  countrymen,  exiles  like  them,  were  there  be- 
fore them.  Besides  the  recognized  congregations  of  English 
subjects,  which  had  been  established  in  various  cities,  and 
which — purporting  to  be  of  the  Church  of  England,  though 
generally  served  by  Puritan  ministers^  —  were  under  the 
protection  of  a  treaty,  there  was  at  Amsterdam  (as  former- 
ly, under  Robert  Browne,  there  had  been  at  Middleburg)  an 
organized  congregation  of  English  Separatists.  In  that  more 
ancient  church,  the  exiles  from  Scrooby  found  some  of  their 
former  friends.  They  also  found  in  Amsterdam  their  old 
neighbor  John  Smyth,  and  many  who  had  been  members  of 
the  church  under  his  guidance  at  Gainsborough,  and  who, 
with  him,  had  escaped  from  England  a  year  or  two  earlier 
than  they.  It  was  natural  for  them  to  sit  down,  at  first, 
among  their  countrymen  and  friends  in  that  great  commer- 
cial city,  till  they  could  intelligently  form  their  plans  for  a 
more  permanent  residence. 

They  soon  discovered  that,  among  the  English  Separatists 
at  Amsterdam,  there  were  elements  of  discord,  tending  to 
dissolution.  Already  there  had  been  a  painful  agitation  in 
the  church  under  the  pastoral  care  of  Francis  Johnson  ;  and 
it  had  resulted  in  the  excommunication  of  two  conspicuous 
members.  The  story  is  worth  telling,  not  only  because  it 
gives  us  a  glimpse  into  the  interior  of  a  Separatist  church  in 
those  days,  but  also  because  there  is  something  of  a  moral  in 
it.      It  began  with  a  complaint  against  the  pastor's  wife. 

'  Such  was  the  position  of  Francis  Johnson  when  he  was  "preacher  to  thc 
Company  of  English  of  the  Staple  at  Middlehurg."    Ante,  p.  129. 


218  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.      [CH.  XI. 

When  the  Scrooby  exiles  knew  her,  she  was,  as  they  testify, 
a  grave  matron,  modest  in  dress  and  demeanor,  ready  to  all 
good  works  in  her  place,  especially  helpful  to  the  poor,  and 
an  ornament  to  her  husband's  pastoral  office.  In  her  youth 
she  had  been  a  merchant's  wife  and  widow;  and  she  was 
still  young  when  Johnson  married  her — "a  godly  woman" 
with  "  a  good  estate."  But  she  was  blamed  by  some  "  be- 
cause she  wore  such  apparel  as  she  had  been  formerly  nsed 
to,"  which  certainly  was  not  very  extravagant.  They  found 
fault  with  "her  wearing  of  some  whalebone  in  the  bodice 
and  sleeves  of  her  gown,"  also  with  her  corked  shoes,  and 
"  other  such  like  things  as  citizens  of  her  rank  used  to  wear." 
The  pastor  and  his  wife,  in  deference  to  such  scruples,  were 
willing  to  reform  the  objectionable  conformity  to  fashion, 
"  so  far  as  might  be  without  spoiling  of  their  garments ;" 
but  the  fault-finders  would  accept  no  compromise.  Pitiful 
it  seems  to  us  that  the  peace  of  a  church  should  be  disturbed 
by  a  conflict  of  opinions  about  the  whalebone  in  a  lady's 
bodice  and  the  cork  in  the  heels  of  her  shoes.  Pitiful  it 
seemed  to  those  who  under  the  teaching  of  Clyfton  and 
Robinson  had  added  to  their  faith  virtue,  and  to  virtue 
knowledge ;  but  "  such,"  said  they,  "  was  the  strictness  of 
some  in  those  times,"  who  could  tolerate  no  Christian  brother 
unless  he  "came  full  up  to  their  size." 

The  chief  complainants  against  the  "  outward  adorning  " 
of  the  pastor's  wife  were  the  pastor's  father  and  brother. 
Probably  some  domestic  feud  was  the  cause  of  the  church 
difficulty.  The  good  sense  of  the  majority  is  shown  in  the 
fact  that  the  pastor  was  not  dismissed,  nor  his  wife  put  under 
censure;  while  the  fidelity  of  the  church  appears  in  the  fact 
that  the  two  leading  agitators,  "  after  long  patience  toward 
them  and  much  pains  taken  with  them,"  were  excluded  from 
communion  "for  their  unreasonable  and  endless  opposition, 
and  such  things  as  did  accompany  the  same."^     The  scars 

'  Bradford's  "Dialogue,"  in  Young's  "Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims,"  p.  446. 


A.D.  1608.]         THE    SEPAEATISTS   IN   AMSTERDAM.  219 

of  that  conflict  must  have  remained  till  after  the  arrival  of 
the  exiles  from  Scrooby. 

At  the  same  time  another  trouble  was  impending.  Smyth, 
"  a  man  of  able  gifts  and  a  good  j^reacher,"  was  also  a  man 
of  "  inconstancy  and  unstable  judgment."  He  had,  of  course, 
much  influence  among  those  who  came  with  him  out  of  En- 
gland, having  been  under  his  pastoral  care  at  Gainsborough ; 
and  he  was  beginning  to  entertain  and  broach  opinions  which 
were  likely  to  raise  a  controversy.  Robinson,  and  "  some 
others  of  best  discerning"  in  the  church  that  came  from 
Scrooby,  "  seeing  how  Mr.  John  Smyth  and  his  company 
were  already  fallen  into  contention  w^ith  the  church  that 
was  there  before  them,"  and  finding  reason  to  believe  "  that 
no  means  they  could  use  would  do  any  good  to  cure  the 
same,"  were  naturally  averse  from  the  thought  of  a  perma- 
nent residence  in  Amsterdam.  "  Flames  of  contention," 
kindled  by  other  causes,  seemed  "  likely  to  break  out  in  that 
ancient  church  itself."  Robinson,  therefore,  and  Brewster, 
and  others  in  their  company,  felt  that  they  must  make  an- 
other removal,  "though  they  knew  it  would  be  much  to 
the  prejudice  of  their  outward  estate."  Their  "outward 
estate"  was  not  the  main  thing  in  their  estimate  of  life;  for 
they  were  "  strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the  earth." 

Is  there  not  in  that  unwillingness  of  theirs  to  remain  among 
their  fellow-exiles  at  Amsterdam  a  noteworthy  indication 
of  their  character  as  a  community  ?  There  was  no  persecu- 
tion to  drive  them  aw^ay.  There  w^as  no  prospect  of  their 
obtaining  more  lucrative  employment  or  better  support  for 
their  families  elsewhere.  We  have  evidence  that  there 
was  no  lack  of  friendliness  between  them  and  their  brethren 
in  exile.  But  they  saw  that,  in  Amsterdam,  they  were  like- 
ly to  be  troubled  with  the  whimsies  of  erratic  and  inconstant 
men;  that  ultra  -  Separatists,  crotchety  inventors  of  new 
opinions,  and  restless  agitators  of  all  sorts,  would  be  contin- 
ually attracted  to  that  centre,  and  that  in  some  other  place 
they  could  have  more  peace  in  their  communion  wdth  each 


220  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.      [CH.  XI. 

other,  and  better  opportunities  for  mutual  edification  and 
the  cultivation  of  Christian  character. 

"  For  these  and  other  reasons,"  says  Bradford,  "  they  re- 
moved to  Leyden,  a  fair  and  beautiful  city,  and  of  a  sweet 
situation,  but  made  more  famous  by  the  university  with 
which  it  is  adorned."  Such  were  the  attractions  which  they 
felt  when  selecting  the  place  of  their  abode — the  beautiful 
city — the  pleasant  situation — the  famous  university  with  its 
resort  of  learned  men.  Against  attractions  so  potent,  the 
consideration  that  Leyden,  "  wanting  that  traffic  by  sea  which 
Amsterdam  enjoyed,  was  not  so  beneficial  for  their  outward 
means  of  living,"  had  no  preponderating  force. 

The  history  of  the  church  under  the  care  of  Johnson  and 
Ainsworth  verified  the  forebodings  which  induced  the  Pil- 
grims to  seek  another  place  of  refuge.  In  some  respects  that 
church  seemed  to  prosper.  Exiles  from  England,  making  a 
fair  profession,  and  sufiferers  for  conscience'  sake,  were  con- 
tinually gathered  into  its  communion;  so  that  for  a  time  it 
had  about  three  hundred  members.  It  was  served  by  a  full 
staff  of  able  officers — pastor,  teacher,  ruling  elders,  deacons, 
and  deaconess.^  Its  worship,  conducted  by  Johnson,  was 
edifying  and  impressive,  not  with  ritual  ornament,  but  with 

'  The  "  Ancient  Men,"  in  Bradford's  "  Dialogue,"  say  :  "At  Amsterdam, 
before  their  division  and  breach,  they  were  about  three  hundred  communi- 
cants; and  they  had  for  their  pastor  and  teacher  those  two  eminent  men 
before  named,  and  in  our  time  four  grave  men  for  ruling  elders,  and  three 
able  and  godly  men  for  deacons,  [also]  one  ancient  widow  for  a  deaconess, 
who  did  them  service  many  years,  though  she  was  sixty  years  of  age  when 
she  was  chosen.  She  honored  her  place  and  was  an  ornament  to  the  con- 
gregation. She  usually  sat  in  a  convenient  place  in  the  congregation  with  a 
little  birchen  rod  in  her  hand,  and  kept  little  children  in  great  awe  from  dis- 
turbing the  congregation.  She  did  frequently  visit  the  sick  and  weak,  and 
especially  women,  and,  as  there  was  need,  called  out  maids  and  young 
women  to  watch  and  do  them  helps  as  their  necessity  did  require ;  and,  if 
they  were  poor,  she  would  gather  relief  for  them  of  those  that  were  able,  or 
acquaint  the  deacons ;  and  she  was  obeyed  as  a  mother  in  Israel  and  an 
oflficer  of  Christ." — Young,  p.  455,  456. 


A.D.  1600-1606.]     THE  separatists  in  Amsterdam.  221 

spiritual  beauty  of  simplicity.^  But  it  was  the  unhappiness 
of  that  church  to  be  infested  with  too  many  of  those  eccen- 
tric and  restless  persons  who,  either  by  their  superficial  en- 
thusiasm and  impulsive  instability,  or  by  their  conscientious 
narrowness,  or  perhaps  by  their  stubborn  impracticableness, 
are  more  troublesome  than  profitable  to  any  church  that  has 
them  among  its  members.  Such  men  are  indigenous  every 
where ;  and  in  times  of  persecution  many  of  them  are  found 
among  the  persecuted.  Amsterdam  was  the  most  convenient 
and  attractive  refuge  for  all  sorts  of  persons  who  could  find 
no  toleration  at  home  for  their  religious  opinions  or  their 
modes  of  worship ;  and  consequently  the  church  of  English 
exiles  there  had  more  than  it  could  well  bear  of  those  mem- 
bers who  become  apostates  and  enemies,  as  well  as  of  those 
who,  wherever  they  may  be,  and  under  whatever  ecclesias- 
tical forms,  disturb  the  peace  of  the  church,  and  make  its 
edification  almost  or  altogether  impossible. 

Those  troubles  began  very  early.  While  Johnson,  the  pas- 
tor, was  still  in  prison  at  London,  some  of  the  exiled  mem- 
bers of  his  flock  fell  into  we  know  not  what  extravagant 
opinions  of  the  Dutch  Anabaptists,  and  were  excommunicated 
by  the  others.  Not  much  later,  "  many  others — some  older, 
some  younger,  even  too  many,  though  not  the  half— fell  into 
a  schism  from  the  rest ;  and  so  many  of  them  as  continued 
therein  were  cast  out;  divers  of  them  repenting  and  return- 
ing before  excommunication,  and  divers  of  them  after."  ^ 
Then,  after  Johnson  himself  had  passed  from  prison  into  ex- 
ile, there  arose  the  great  conflict  concerning  the  whalebone 
in  Mrs.  Johnson's  too  fashionable  bodice  and  the  corks  of  her 
high-heeled  shoes.  An  unhappy  notoriety  was  given  to  that 
conflict  by  the  indomitable  George  Johnson,  who,  after  he 

^  "  A  very  grave  man  he  was,  and  an  able  teacher,  and  was  the  most  sol- 
emn in  all  his  administrations  that  we  have  seen  any,  and  especially  in  dis- 
pensing the  seals  of  the  covenant,  both  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper."' 
Bradford's  "Dialogue,"  in  Young,  p.  44a. 

^  Johnson,  in  Hanburv,  i.,  110,  111. 

P 


222  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CUURCPIES.        [CH.  XI. 

had  been  cast  out  of  the  church  "for  lying,  slandering,  false 
accusation,  and  contention,"  found  means  to  print  his  version 
of  the  story  in  a  volume,  which,  of  course,  found  currency 
among  the  enemies  of  Separation,  whether  Puritans  or  Pre- 
latists.i 

In  other  instances  the  church  was  vexed  with  defamatory 
pamplilets  by  apostate  members.  One  such  pamphlet,  of 
which  a  copy  is  still  extant,  seems  to  have  been  considered, 
like  George  Johnson's,  unworthy  of  a  reply ;  but,  in  another 
case,  a  public  and  authentic  contradiction  was  thought  neces- 
sary, not  only  for  the  reputation  of  the  church,  but  rather  for 
the  defense  of  the  principle  of  Separation.^  All  these  con- 
flicts and  assaults  had  preceded  the  arrival  of  the  Pilgrims 
at  Amsterdam. 

John  Smyth  was  almost  the  last  man  whom  a  judicious 
adviser  would  have  selected  to  neutralize  the  elements  of  dis- 
cord in  such  a  church.  Evidently,  there  was  a  sort  of  mag- 
netism in  his  enthusiastic  nature.  He  was  not  only  a  good 
preacher, but  had  also  other  "able  gifts."  In  his  moral  char- 
acter he  seems  to  have  been  unblamable.  The  fearlessness 
with  which  he  sought  for  truth,  and  the  fidelity  with  which 
he  obeyed  his  convictions,  could  not  but  command  respect. 
But  with  all  his  "  able  gifts"  and  estimable  qualities,  he  had 
not  the  gift  of  good  common-sense ;  his  mind's  eye  was  mi- 

^  "Discourse  of  certain  Troubles  and  Excommunications  in  the  Banished 
English  Church  at  Amsterdam,  etc.     1603."     Hanbury,  i.,  99. 

2  "Brownism  turned  the  Inside  outward:  Being  a  Parallel  between  the 
Profession  and  Practice  of  the  Brownists'  Religion.  By  Christopher  Lawne, 
lately  returned  from  that  wicked  Separation.  London,  1603."  Hanbury, 
i.,  100. 

"A  Discovery  of  Brownism  :  Or  a  brief  Declaration  of  some  of  the  Errors 
and  Abominations  daily  practiced  and  increased  among  the  English  Company 
of  the  Separation  remaining  for  the  present  at  Amsterdam,  in  Holland. 
By  Thomas  White.     London,  1605."     Hanbury,  i.,  107. 

"An  Inquiry  and  Answer  of  Thomas  White  in  his  'Discovery  of  Brown- 
ism.' By  Francis  Johnson,  Pastor  of  the  Exiled  English  Church  at  Amster- 
dam, in  Holland.      1606."     Hanbury,  iJyid. 


A.D.  1609.]  THE    SEPARATISTS    IN    AMSTERDAM.  223 

croscopic,  incapable  of  seeing  things  in  their  perspective  and 
proportions.  Snch  a  man  could  not  but  bring  with  him,  into 
such  a  community  as  that  of  the  English  exiles  at  Amster- 
dam, new  questions  to  be  debated  and  new  contentions. 

At  this  day,  it  weighs  not  much  in  proof  of  Smyth's  insta- 
bility, or  against  the  soundness  of  his  judgment,  wlien  wc 
are  told  that  he  adopted  those  theological  opinions  which 
Arminius  had  maintained  in  opposition  to  Gomarus,  and 
which  were  favored  in  England  by  divines  like  Laud  and 
Bancroft.  Nor  can  we  certainly  conclude  against  him  when 
we  are  told  that  he  became  scrupulous  about  baptism,  and 
denied  that  it  could  be  properly  administered  to  the  children 
of  Christian  parents.  But  when  we  find  what  the  beginning 
was  of  his  quarrel  with  the  Amsterdam  church,  we  see  what 
ailed  him.  "He,  with  his  followers,"  says  Ainsw^orth  in  be- 
half of  the  church,  "  breaking  off  communion  with  us,  charged 
us  with  sin  for  using  our  English  Bibles  in  the  worship  of 
God."  His  position  was  that  the  official  ministers  of  a  church 
— the  pastor  and  teacher — "  should  bring  the  originals,  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek,  and  out  of  them  translate  by  voice." 
Withdrawing  from  the  church,  for  this  reason,  with  his  ad- 
herents, he  afterward  discovered  that  what  he  called  "  tlie 
tri-formed  presbytery"  (consisting  of  pastor,  teacher,  and 
ruling  elders)  was  "a  false  ministry,"  and  he  denounced  it 
accordingly.  Then  he  learned  that,  "  in  contributing  to  the 
church  treasury,  there  ought  to  be  a  separation  from  them 
that  are  without,"  inasmuch  as  the  contribution  is  a  religious 
communion.  Another  of  his  crotchets  was  that  the  singing 
of  improvised  compositions  (the  tune  and  the  hymn  coming 
"by  gift  of  the  Spirit")  is  "a  part  of  God's  proper  worship 
in  the  New  Testament;"  and  on  that  ground,  also,  he  quar- 
reled with  his  former  brethren,  "  who  contented  themselves 
with  joint  harmonious  singing  of  the  Psalms  of  Holy  Script- 
ure." Evidently  the  man  was,  in  Ainsworth's  phrase,  and 
more  literally  than  Ainsworth  thought,  "  benumbed  in  mind." 
Yet  such  were  the  materials  of  the  Amsterdam  church,  and 


'224  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [cH.  XI. 

such  was  the  man's  personal  influence,  especially  over  those 
who  had  come  with  liim  out  of  England,  that  in  his  seces- 
sion he  drew  after  him  a  considerable  body  of  followers.^ 
He  died  not  long  after  that  secession;  but  the  church 
which  he  gathered — sometimes  called  "the  remainders  of  Mr. 
Smyth's  company" — outlived  him,  and,  after  a  while,  return- 
ed into  England  to  testify  and  to  suffer  there  in  the  great 
cause  of  religious  liberty. 

At  a  later  date,  the  Amsterdam  church  was  agitated,  and 
finally  rent  in  twain,  by  another  controversy — probably  the 
one  which  Robinson  "and  others  of  the  best  discerning"  in 
his  church  had  foreseen  as  "  likely  to  break  out,"  and  from 
which  they  desired  to  escape.  The  question  arose  whether 
the  church  should  be  self- governed,  or  governed  by  what 
Smyth  had  called  "the  tri- formed  presbytery."  Whether 
there  should  be  elders  in  the  church  was  not  disputed ;  nor 
whether,  in  addition  to  the  pastor  and  teacher,  known  as  the 
"  teaching  elders,"  there  sliould  be  other  elders,  sharing  equal- 
ly with  them  in  the  duty  of  overseeing  and  ruling  the  con- 
gregation. All  this  was  agreed  to  on  both  sides  as  the  ob- 
vious interpretation  of  apostolic  precept  and  example.  The 
elders,  including  the  pastor  and  the  teacher,  were  to  rule, 
and  were  all  equal  in  the  function  of  ruling;  but  in  what 
sense  were  they  to  rule  ?  Were  they  executive  officers  mere- 
ly, presiding  in  the  assembled  church,  conducting  its  worship, 
preparing  matters  for  its  consideration,  guiding  its  delibera- 
tions, but  concluding  nothing  save  with  the  consent  of  the 

'  The  church  which  Smyth  gathered  does  not  appear  to  have  been  a  Bap- 
tist Church,  as  that  name  is  commonly  understood.  Had  he  insisted  on  im- 
mersion as  the  only  baptism,  there  would  have  been  some  traces  of  a  contro- 
versy on  that  point  between  him  and  Ainsworth,  or  between  him  and  Robin- 
son. He  and  his  party  held  that  those  who  had  been  baptized  in  their  in- 
fancy must  be  rebaptized  on  a  personal  profession  of  fiiith,  and,  in  that  sense, 
they  were  ^wa-baptists.  Smyth  is  sometimes  called  "the  SVbaptist,"  be- 
cause, when  he  renounced  his  former  baptism,  he  baptized  himself  before 
proceedingtobaptize  his  followers.    Robinson's  Works,  i.,  452;  iii.,  168, 169. 


A.D.  1610.]  THE    SEPARATISTS    IN    AMSTERDAM.  225 

brethren  ?  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  were  they  to  open  and 
shut,  to  censure  and  absolve,  to  direct  and  control  all  things 
according  to  their  own  judgment  and  without  appeal,  the 
only  duty  of  the  brotherhood  in  such  matters  being  the  duty 
of  submission  ? 

On  this  question,  the  pastor  and  the  teacher  were  opposed 
to  each  other.  Johnson,  as  a  Puritan,  had  adopted  Cart- 
wright's  ideal  of  ecclesiastical  polity;  and,  when  he  sepa- 
rated from  the  National  Church,  he  might  very  naturally 
carry  with  him,  into  his  new  relations,  the  Presbyterian  feel- 
ing that  a  congregation  ought  not  to  govern  itself  as  an 
equal  brotherhood,  but  ought  rather  to  be  governed  by  its 
officers  in  a  consistory  or  session.  Ainsworth  had  never  been 
a  member  of  the  clerical  order  in  England ;  and,  naturally, 
he  had  no  hierarchical  prejudices.  He  was  only  a  Christian 
scholar,  profoundly  and  minutely  learned,  whom  the  church, 
because  of  his  gifts,  had  chosen  to  be  one  of  its  elders,  labor- 
ing in  word  and  doctrine,  as  it  had  chosen  Johnson  to  be 
another.  It  was  easy  for  him  to  understand  that  the  elders, 
whether  ruling  only,  or  ruling  and  teaching,  were  not  lords 
over  God's  heritage,  but  servants  of  the  church,  responsible 
to  their  constituency  for  their  official  acts,  and  governing 
not  by  power  but  by  light,  and  with  the  free  consent  of  the 
brotherhood  to  every  act  of  government.  After  much  con- 
tention, the  "  Ainsworthians,"  as  they  were  called,  withdrew 
from  the  "Johnsonians,"  and  the  church  was  finally  divided. 
(Dec,  1610).! 

Which  of  the  two  parties  was  the  more  numerous  does 
not  appear.  It  is  said  that  Johnson  and  his  adherents  re- 
moved, after  a  while,  from  Amsterdam  to  Embden,  in  the 
neighboring  province  of  Friesland  ;  and  that  there  his  church, 
claiming  to  be  the  same  with  the  old  Southwark  church  of 
which  he  was  the  pastor  and  Greenwood  the  teacher,  dwin- 
dled in  its  loneliness,  till  not  far  from  the  time  of  his  death 


^  Hanbury,  i.,  240-256. 


226  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XI. 

it  became  extinct.     The  other  fragment,  under  the  ministry 
of  Ainsvvorth,  remained  at  the  old  place,  and  afterward  was 
known  as  "  the  ancient  English  Church  in  Amsterdam."    After 
his  death  it  lived  on,  not  without  some  experience  of  internal 
dissensions,  and,  even  half  a  century  later  (1671),  there  were 
said  to  be  "  some  remains  "  of  it.     The  "  blind  lane  "  in  which 
the  English  Separatists  had  their  meeting-place  was  probably 
that  which  is  now  called  "  Brownists'  Lane,"  and  which  is  the 
only  remaining  trace  in  Amsterdam  of  "  that  ancient  church." 
But  "the  bush  was  not  consumed."     Before  the  death  of 
Johnson  the  church  of  the  martyrs  had  begun  to  live  again 
in  Southwark.      Henry  Jacob,  a  beneficed  minister  of  the 
National  Church,  had  suffered  for  nonconformity,  and,  like 
many  other  clergymen  obnoxious  to  the  ecclesiastical  courts, 
had  escaped  into  Holland,  where  he  gathered  a  congregation 
of  English  sojourners,  using  their  liberty  of  worship,  but  pro- 
fessing not  to  separate  from  the  National  Church  of  theii- 
own  country.      As  a  Puritan  he  had  earnestly  opposed  the 
extreme  opinions  of  the  Separatists,  and  had  been,  in  more 
than  one  published  discussion,  the   antagonist  of  Johnson ; 
but,  like  Johnson,  he   had  yielded  to   arguments  which  he 
could  not  refute,  and  had  become  himself  a  Separatist.     He 
had  ventured  on  returning  into  England;  and,  perhaps  with 
the  aid  of  some  who  had  been  members  of  the  church  in  Am- 
sterdam, he  sought  out  and  gathered  into  a  new  church  (1616) 
the  hidden  ones  who   had  maintained  their  fidelity  to  the 
cause  through  those  years   of  persecution.       It  was  a  new 
church,  constituted  partly  from  what  remained  in  London  of 
that  martyr  church  which,  after  giving  Greenwood,  Penry, 
and  Barrowe  to  the  gallows,  had  been  driven  into  exile.     It 
was  the  church  of  the  martyrs,  renewing  its  life  at  its  birth- 
place.     A  few  brethren,  in  whom  the  spirit  of  the  martyrs 
lived,  assembled  in  private  for  a  day  of  prayer  and  fasting. 
At  the  close  of  the  day,  each  of  them  in  succession  made 
profession  of  his  faith  in  Christ.     Then,  standing  together, 
hand  clasped  in  hand,  they  covenanted  with  each  other  and 


A.D.  1616,]  THE    SEPARATISTS    IN    AMSTERDAM.  227 

with  God  that  they  would  walk  together  as  a  church  of 
Christ  "  in  all  God's  ways  and  ordinances,  according  as  ho 
had  already  revealed  or  should  further  make  them  known  to 
themy  To  complete  the  organization,  church  officers  must  be 
chosen  and  inducted.  Henry  Jacob  was  designated  pastor 
by  the  uplifted  hands  of  the  brotherhood,  and  others,  by  the 
same  formality,  were  chosen  deacons.  Then  pastor  and  dea- 
cons were  ordained  by  prayer  and  the  laying  on  of  hands. ^ 

The  church  in  South wark  thus  reconstituted  has  outlived 
persecution,  and  is  now  the  mother  church  of  the  thousands 
of  Congregational  churches  in  the  British  Empire. 

^  Neal,  vol.i.,262;  Hanbury,!.,  292,  293;  Robinson's  Works, iii.,444-44G. 
The  church  is  that  of  which  Dr.  Wacldington  was  lately  pastor,  and  from 
which  he  has  retired  to  pursue  his  work  in  "  Congregational  History." 


228  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND  CHURCHES.      [CH.  XH. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    SOJOUEN    AT    LEYDEN. JOHN    ROBINSON    A    PASTOR    AND 

AN    AUTHOR. 

In  the  archives  of  the  city  of  Leyclen  there  has  been  pre- 
served a  memorial  addressed  by  the  Pilgrims  (Feb.  12=:  22, 
1609)  to  "the  Honorable  the  Burgomasters  and  Court  of  the 
City."  The  memorialists,  "  to  the  number  of  one  hundred 
or  thereabout,  men  and  women,  represent  that  they  are  de- 
sirous of  coming  to  live  in  this  city,  by  the  first  of  May  next, 
and  to  have  the  freedom  thereof  in  carrying  on  their  trades, 
without  being  a  burden  in  the  least  to  any  one ;"  and  their 
humble  petition  is  that  they  may  have  "free  consent"  to  do  so. 
The  reply  of  the  civic  authorities  was  "  that  they  refuse  no 
honest  persons  free  ingress  to  come  and  have  their  residence 
in  this  city,  provided  that  such  persons  behave  themselves 
and  submit  to  the  laws  and  ordinances ;  and  therefore  the 
coming  of  the  memorialists  will  be  agreeable  and  welcome." 

That  "first  of  May,"  then,  was  their  " moving-day."  Leav- 
ing the  friends  whom  they  had  found  in  Amsterdam,  and 
making  their  escape  from  the  conflicts  that  seemed  to  be 
impending  there,  they  came  to  the  more  quiet  city  which 
was  to  be  for  a  while  their  home.  There,  in  a  community 
by  themselves,  bound  to  each  other  by  intimate  sympathies 
and  by  mutual  helpfulness,  they  could  wait  for  some  such 
change  in  the  policy  of  the  English  government  as  would 
give  them  toleration  in  their  native  land.  Accordingly  "  they 
fell  to  such  trades  and  employments  as  they  best  could,  valu- 
ing peace  and  their  spiritual  comfort  above  any  other  riches." 
In  respect  to  trades  and  employments,  the  place  of  their 
abode  was  wisely  chosen.  Leyden  was  a  great  hive  of  manu- 
facturing industry — not  like  a  manufacturing  city  of  to-day. 


A.D.  1609.]  THE    SOJOURN    AT   LEYDEN.  229 

but  as  such  industry  was  before  the  age  of  machinery ;  and 
at  tliat  time  the  products  of  Dutch  handicraft  went  into  all 
the  markets  of  the  world. 

Most  of  the  Pilgrims  had  been,  in  England,  simple  husband- 
men. Their  brief  residence  in  Amsterdam  had  given  them 
scanty  opportunity  for  becoming  skillful  in  new  employments. 
If  they  were  to  live  in  Leyden,  they  must  learn  such  trades  as 
would  yield  them  a  subsistence  there ;  and  however  willing 
they  might  be  to  labor,  their  earnings  must  needs  be  small 
at  first.  Yet  they  redeemed  their  promise  to  sustain  them- 
selves "  without  being  a  burden  in  the  least  to  any  one." 
With  brave  hearts  they  betook  themselves  to  such  employ- 
ments as  they  could  find ;  "  and  at  length  they  came  to  raise 
a  competent  and  comfortable  living,  but  with  hard  and  con- 
tinual labor."  A  few  of  them  (not  more  than  five)  seem  to 
have  had  so  much  capital  as  enabled  them  to  engage  in  com- 
merce, and  are  named  in  the  city  records  as  "  merchants." 
One  was  a  "  physician,"  whose  gift  of  healing  was  employed, 
no  doubt,  chiefly  among  the  members  of  the  Pilgrim  com- 
munity. Others  were  "  silk-workers,"  "  fustian-makers," 
"  wool-carders,"  and  artisans  in  similar  branches  of  manufact- 
ure. Three  were  printers,  there  being  (as  we  have  seen) 
much  occasion  for  the  printing  of  English  books  in  the 
Netherlands.  One  was  a  mason,  one  a  carpenter,  one  a 
smith,  and  one  a  tailor ;  and  these  might  have  brought  their 
trades  with  them  out  of  England.  Bi-adford  is  mentioned 
in  the  records  as  a  fustian-maker.  But  another  authority 
tells  us  that  while  he  was  at  Amsterdam,  he  "stooped  to 
difliculties  in  learning  and  serving  of  a  Frenchman  at  the 
working  of  silks ;"  and  that  when  he  came  of  age — which 
was  after  their  arrival  at  Leyden — he  sold  his  estate  in  En- 
gland and  "  set  up  for  himself"  in  some  business  (perhaps 
the  same  "working  of  silks"),  which  proved  to  him  unfor- 
tunate.^     Brewster,  the  scholar  and  courtier,  who  had  for- 

'■  Mather,  "Magnalia,"  i.,  11 1. 


230  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XII. 

iiierly  passed  through  the  cities  of  Holland  as  an  attache  of 
the  English  embassy,  "  suffered  much  hardship  after  he  had 
spent  the  most  of  his  means,  having  a  great  charge  and 
many  children,"  and  being,  because  of  his  former  condition 
and  course  of  life,  "  not  so  fit  for  many  employments  as  oth- 
ers were,  especially  such  as  were  toilsome  and  laborious." 
Yet  he  was  always  cheerful  and  contented.  After  a  few 
years,  his  familiarity  with  Latin  enabled  him  to  support  him- 
self comfortably  by  teaching  English  to  students  in  the  uni- 
versity, "  both  Danes  and  Germans,"  for  whom  he  seems  to 
have  drawn  up  an  English  grammar  in  Latin.  He  also  ob- 
tained means  to  establish  a  printing-office,  where  books  were 
printed  in  Latin  and  in  English,  the  English  books  being 
sometimes  such  as  could  not  be  safely  printed  in  England.' 
Though  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  he  was  either  com- 
positor or  pressman,  he  was  so  much  of  a  printer  that  the 
books  from  his  establishment  attest  his  skill  in  the  art.  His 
partner  in  that  business — apparently  a  sleeping  partner  who 
supplied  the  capital — was  Thomas  Brewer,  "  a  gentleman  of 
a  good  house,  both  of  land  and  living,"  who  was  himself  a 
sojourner  in  the  Netherlands  for  conscience'  sake,  who  had 
many  friends  there,  and  had  become  a  member  of  the  uni- 
versity in  Leyden,  and  w^ho  was  expending  his  wealth  freely 
in  the  service  of  religion. ^ 

When  the  Pilgrims  had  established  themselves  in  Leyden, 
the  office  of  pastor  in  their  church  was  vacant.  At  Scrooby 
they  had  Clyfton  for  pastor  and  Robinson  for  teacher.  So 
while  they  sojourned  at  Amsterdam,  if  they  assembled  by 
themselves  instead  of  joining  temporarily  with  the  church  al- 
ready there,  they  had  the  same  officers.  But  when  they  de- 
termined to  make  another  removal,  Clyfton  was  unwilling  to 
remove  with  them.  He  was  beginning  to  be  an  old  man, 
though  he  was  not  so  old  as  he  seemed  to  his  younger  and 

'  Bradford,  p.  412,  413. 

''  Waddington,  "Hidden  Church,"  p.  210-227. 


A.D.  1609.]  THE    SOJOURX    AT    LEYDEN.  231 

more  enterprising  brethren.  Bradford,  who  revered  him  as 
liis  spiritual  father,  and,  while  yet  a  child,  had  been  under 
his  earnest  ministry,  says  of  him:  "He  was  a  grave  and  fa- 
therly old  man  when  he  first  came  into  Holland,  having  a 
great  white  beard;  and  pity  it  was  that  such  a  reverend  old 
man  should  be  forced  to  leave  his  country,  and  at  those  years 
to  go  into  exile.  But  it  Avas  his  lot;  and  he  bore  it  patient- 
ly." At  the  age  of  lifty-six,  he  did  not  feel  that  he  was 
called  to  make  another  removal.  Perhaps  he  differed  from 
Robinson  and  others  of  that  company  in  their  foresight  of 
"the  flames  of  contention  that  were  like  to  break  out"  be- 
tween Johnson  and  Ainsworth ;  for  afterward,  when  that 
contention  had  arrived  at  its  crisis,  he  and  the  church,  in 
which  he  once  held  the  foremost  place,  were  on  opposite 
sides.  Certainly  he  was  "settled  at  Amsterdam"  so  much 
to  his  own  satisfaction  that  "  he  was  loath  to  remove  any 
more."  When  the  Pilgrims  removed  from  that  city,  he  was 
amicably  dismissed  to  the  ancient  church ;  and  there,  some 
three  years  latei-,  he  succeeded  Ainsworth  in  the  office  of 
teacher. 

The  vacancy  made  by  the  dismissal  of  Clyfton  was  filled 
by  the  election  of  Robinson  to  the  office  of  pastor.  Although 
the  pastor-elect  had  been  "  in  holy  orders  "  before  he  became 
a  Separatist,  and  had  been  ordained  again  when  the  church 
called  him  to  minister  as  its  teacher,  his  induction  to  another 
office  required  (in  his  opinion  and  in  that  of  the  church)  a 
new  ordination.  Instead  of  being  "  installed "  over  the 
church,  he  was  ordained  to  a  definite  office  in  the  church. 
A  minister  who  is  already  a  member  in  a  classical  presby- 
tery may  be  publicly  put  in  charge  of  one  of  the  congrega- 
tions governed  by  that  presbytery,  and  the  ceremony  will 
be  an  installation  ;  but  such  was  not  the  introd»¥5tion  of  the 
Pilgrim  pastor  into  his  office.  Having  been  designated  by 
the  uplifted  hands  of  the  brotherhood  (xetjooro^m),  he  received 
also  "  the  laying  on  of  hands  "  (xeipo-^ema)  by  the  authority 
which  Christ  had  oiven  to  the  church  itself     Tlie  office  of 


232  GENESIS    OF   THE    XEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XII. 

teacher,  made  vacant  when  Robinson  became  pastor,  was  not 
tilled — probably  because  no  other  man  among  them  had 
received  the  education  which  they  required  as  a  qualifica- 
tion for  the  work  of  a  teaching  elder.  Brewster  was 
thenceforward  (perhaps  had  been  before)  the  ruling  elder, 
and  in  that  capacity  he  was  a  colleague -bishop  with  the 
pastor.  They  had  also  "  three  able  men  for  deacons."  John 
Carver  was  one  of  them,  and  Samuel  Fuller,  their  physician, 
was  another.  1 

As,  in  England,  their  place  of  meeting  had  been  Brewster's 
great  manor-house,  so,  in  Leyden,  not  long  after  their  re- 
moval thither,  a  large  house  was  purchased  by  John  Robin- 
son and  three  others — whether  with  their  private  means  or 
as  agents  for  the  community,  we  can  only  conjecture;  and 
that  house  seems  to  have  been  at  once  the  pastor's  residence 
and  the  meetings-house  of  the  church.  Recent  investiGjations 
have  ascertained  the  locality  with  great  exactness.^  It  was 
near  the  Peter's-church,  being  just  across  the  street  from 
the  "clock-house"  (or  campanile)  of  that  grand  old  edifice — 
a  cathedral  which  then  had  stood  five  hundred  years,  and 
which,  even  now,  may  stand  five  hundred  years  more.  A 
few  rods  distant,  in  one  direction,  was  Brewster's  printing- 

'  Robinson,  Works,  vol.  i.,  "Memoir,"  p.  xxix.,  xxx.  ;  also  p.  452,  453; 
Bradford,  p.  17,  413.  Bradford  says  of  the  ruling  elder  Brewster:  "When 
the  church  had  no  other  minister,  he  taught  twice  every  Sabbath,  and  that 
both  powerfully  and  profitably,"  Teaching  was  not  an  ordinary  function  of 
a  ruling  elder,  but  in  the  absence  of  pastor  and  teacher,  he  presided  in  public 
worship,  and  the  gift  of  public  speech  was  regarded  as  an  important  qualifica- 
tion for  his  office.  Robinson  says  (Works,  ii,,  131)  :  "  We  make  no  dumb 
ministers;  neither  dare  we  admit  of  any  man  either  for  a  teaching  or  govern- 
ing elder  of  whose  ability  in  prayer,  prophesying,  and  debating  of  church 
matters  we  have  not  had  good  experience." 

^  The  late  George  Sumner  led  the  way  in  exploring  Leyden  and  its 
archives  for  traces  of  the  Pilgrims  in  their  residence  there,  and  gave  his  re- 
sults in  "Memoirs  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Leyden."  Among  those  who  have 
followed  him,  none  have  been  more  diligent  or  more  successful  than  Prof. 
George  E.  Day,  of  New  Haven,  and  Dr.  Henry  M.  Dexter,  of  Boston. 


illl!iil|||i]|||i|j!|||lil''l 


'       ll>'  I  " 


liHiJililillllliili^ 


A.D.  1609-18.]  THE    SOJOURN    AT    LEYDEN.  233 

office,  and  near  by,  in  another  direction,  his  residence.  Not 
much  farther  off  was  Bradford's  house,  very  near  the  old 
pile  known  as  the  university ;  for,  though  the  Leyden  uni- 
versity was  then  a  modern  institution,  it  occupied  a  building 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  which,  till  the  Reformation,  had  been  a 
monastery. 

The  Pilgrims  received  kind  and  hospitable  treatment  in 
Leyden,  and  enjoyed  their  sojourn  there,  notwithstanding 
their  many  hardships.  Sweet  was  the  taste  of  liberty,  though 
in  a  land  of  strangers;  and  sweet  was  their  communion  with 
each  other  and  with  God,  while  in  their  allotted  measure 
they  were  "  filling  up  that  which  is  behind  of  the  afflictions 
of  Christ."  All  that  they  had  suffered  together  endeared 
them  to  each  other,  and  was  the  first  stage — as  those  years 
of  "  peace  and  spiritual  comfort  "  were  the  second — of  their 
training  for  a  destiny  of  which  they  had,  as  yet,  no  definite 
anticipation.  Long  afterward,  when  they  had  begun  to  in- 
habit a  wilderness  which,  in  some  sense,  they  could  call  their 
own,  they  cherished  a  grateful  and  tender  memory  of  Ley- 
den. "  Being  thus  settled,  after  many  difficulties,  they  con- 
tinued many  years  in  a  comfortable  condition,  enjoying  much 
sweet  and  delightful  society  and  spiritual  comfort  together 
in  the  ways  of  God, ...  so  as  they  grew  in  knowledge  and 
other  gifts  and  graces  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  lived  togeth- 
er in  peace  and  love  and  holiness."  Nor  were  they  without 
increase  of  numbers;  for  the  report  of  their  peace  and  spir- 
itual prosperity  went  abroad  among  the  Separatists  still 
persecuted  in  their  native  country.  "Many  came  to  them 
from  England,  so  as  they  grew  a  great  congregation,"  hardly 
less  numerous  than  that  in  Amsterdam.  "And  if  at  any 
time  any  differences  did  arise,  or  offenses  broke  out  (as  it  can 
not  be  but  that  sometimes  there  will  even  among  the  best 
of  men),  they  were  ever  so  met  with  and  nipped  in  the  head 
betimes,  or  otherwise  so  well  composed,  as  still  love,  peace, 
and  communion  was  continued ;  or  else  the  church  [was] 
purged  of  those  that  were  incurable  and  incorrigible,  when, 


234  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND   CHURCHES.      [CH.  Xll. 

after  much  patience  used,  no  other  means  would  serve- — 
which  seldom  comes  to  pass."* 

Maintaining  a  fraternal  intercourse  with  their  fellow-exiles 
at  Amsterdam,  they  could  not  but  have  some  share  in  the 
troubles  which  came  upon  that  less-favored  community. 
The  Amsterdam  church — partly  by  reason  of  its  locality, 
partly,  perhaps,  by  the  force  of  some  elective  affinity — drew 
to  itself  many  of  those  fugitives  or  exiles  who,  having  been 
Puritan  clergymen  in  the  Church  of  England,  had  advanced 
from  Puritanism  to  Separation.  Some  of  these — for  exam- 
ple, Clyfton — were  never  liable  to  any  charge  of  defection 
from  evangelical  doctrine  or  of  instability.  Others — such  as 
Smyth — were  erratic,  and  driven  by  every  wind  of  doctrine. 
Others  were  of  the  same  sort  with  Robert  Browne,  zealous 
for  a  while,  then  relapsing  into  Anglicanism,  and,  sometimes 
at  least,  assailing  the  persecuted  church  with  malignant 
slanders.  The  Leyden  church  was  "not  at  all  inferior  in 
able  men ;"  but  its  able  men  were  of  another  sort — men  of 
broad  views  and  generous  culture,  like  Robinson — men  of 
wide  experience  in  affairs,  like  Brewster — practical  men,  like 
Carver  and  Bradford.  Thus  exempted  from  the  disturbing 
influence  of  men  who  live  in  speculations  and  disputes,  and 
who  seem  to  regard  religion  itself  as  something  to  quarrel 
about,  they  were  trained  into  the  simplest  and  purest  style 
of  Christian  character;  "and,  that  which  was  a  crown  unto 
them,  they  lived  together  in  peace  and  love  all  their  days 
without  any  considerable  differences,  or  any  disturbance  that 
grew  there  by  but  such  as  was  easily  healed  in  love."  Yet 
let  it  not  be  thought  that  all  the  able  men  in  the  church  at 
Amsterdam  were  contentious.  "  Many  worthy  and  able  men 
there  were  in  both  places,  who  lived  and  died  in  obscurity 
in  respect  of  the  world,  as  private  Christians,  yet  were  they 
precious  in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord,  and  also  in  the  eyes  of  such 
as  knew  them — whose  virtues  we,"  said  the  "  ancient  men  " 

'  Bradford,  p.  17,  18. 


A.D.  1609-18.]  THE    SOJOUEN    AT    LEYDEX.  235 

at  Plymouth,  "  with  such  of  you  as  are  their  children,  do 
follow." 

Among  the  Pilgrims  there  was  no  serious  division  on  that 
question  about  the  powers  of  elders  or  church-overseers  which 
was  so  contentiously  debated  at  Amsterdam.^  When  the 
contention  had  become  chronic,  the  minority  (for  so  we  may 
call  the  party  opposing  Johnson's  claim  of  power)  proposed 
that  the  church  at  Leyden  should  be  sent  for  to  hear  the 
q\iestion  debated  and  to  give  advice.  This  proposal  was, 
substantially,  a  request  for  a  mutual  council ;  but  the  major- 
ity preferred  that  the  Leyden  church  should  either  interpose 
uninvited,  or  come  at  the  invitation  of  the  discontented 
party.  After  some  hesitation,  about  thirty  members  of  the 
Amsterdam  church  subscribed  a  letter  inviting  the  Leyden 
church  to  come,  to  hear  all  parties,  and  to  give  such  advice 
as  might  be  needful.  Li  other  words,  the  minority  called  an 
ex  parte  council.  They  thought  that  their  teacher,  Ains- 
worth,  though  disliking  their  pastor's  new  doctrine,  was  not 
sufficiently  resolute  in  his  opposition  to  it,  "  hoping  rather 
to  pacify  his  colleague  by  moderation,  than  by  opposition  to 
stop  him  in  his  intended  course,  and  fearing  lest  he  should 
give  encouragement  to  the  too  violent  oppositions  of  some 
brethren "  with  whom  he  agreed  in  opinion  on  the  main 
question.  But  the  Leyden  church  was  reluctant.  Listead 
of  complying  at  once  with  the  invitation,  they  wrote  to  the 
church  at  Amsterdam,  asking  for  information,  and  "  signify- 
ing their  unwillingness  to  interpose  save  upon  a  due  and 
necessary  calling,  and  under  the  conditions  of  best  hope  of 
success."  At  last,  Robinson  and  Brewster  went,  first  of 
themselves,  and  afterward  at  the  request  of  Ainsworth  and 
his  friends,  being  sent  by  the  church  of  which  they  were  the 
elders,  and  "delivering  the  church's  message,"  reproving 
what  they  judged  evil  in  the  Amsterdam  church,  "  and  that " 
— as  they  confess  in  a  review  of  the  whole  story — "with 

^  k?ee  chap.  xi. 

Q 


236  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XII. 

some  vehemence."  The  result  of  that  neighborly  visit  was 
an  agreement — somewhat  informal  perhaps,  but  proposed  by 
Johnson,  and  distinctly  approved  by  the  other  church — that 
those  of  the  minority  who  could  not  with  a  good  conscience 
submit  to  the  presbyterian  rule  which  their  pastor  was  in- 
troducing, should  be  freely  dismissed  to  the  church  at  Ley- 
den.  But  when  it  appeared  that  the  persons  thus  dismissed 
would  hold  themselves  free  to  reside  still  at  Amsterdam,  the 
agreement  Avas  repudiated  by  Johnson  and  his  friends.  Oth- 
er proposals  for  accommodation  Avere  subsequently  discuss- 
ed in  letters  between  the  two  churches,  and  the  correspond- 
ence was  continued  till  Ains worth  and  his  friends  withdrew, 
and  became  another  church  in  Amsterdam. 

The  story  of  this  appeal  from  one  church  to  another,  and 
of  the  response,  is  significant  of  the  relations  which  were  to 
exist  among  voluntary  churches,  mutually  independent,  as 
well  as  independent  of  thrones  and  hierarchies.  Churches 
which  have  no  other  charter  than  the  New  Testament,  which 
derive  their  authority,  each  for  itself,  directly  from  Christ, 
and  which  profess  that  to  its  own  master  each  must  stand 
or  fall,  may  nevertheless  acknowledge  a  fraternal  responsi- 
bility to  each  other — may  ask  one  of  another,  and  may  give 
advice  or  other  help  in  case  of  need — may  fraternally  ad- 
monish or  rebuke  each  other  in  case  of  fault — may  co-oper- 
ate by  mutual  helpfulness  or  combined  effort  in  behalf  of 
common  interests — without  any  surrender  of  their  independ- 
ence, and  without  organizing  a  superior  and  centralized  gov- 
ernment over  all. 

It  was  for  the  sake  of  assembling  freely  to  worship  God 
according  to  the  simplicity  and  i3urity  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  to  be  edified  by  the  ministry  of  the  word,  that 
the  pilgrims  had  escaped  out  of  England  into  that  land  of 
strangers.  What,  then,  were  their  advantages  and  means 
of  Christian  culture?  As  a  religious  community  in  Leyden, 
they  were  almost  isolated.  The  church  at  Amsterdam  was 
forty  miles  away;  and  while  they  recognized  the  fratcriud 


A.D.  1609-18.]  THE    SOJOURN    AT    LEYDEN.  237 

bond  of  commimioii  with  it,  they  did  not  long  for  a  closer 
proximity  to  it.  Simultaneously  with  their  coming  to  the 
city,  a  Scotch  congregation  was  established  there,  with  Rob- 
ert Durie  as  its  minister;  but  though,  since  the  death  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  the  King  of  Scots  had  been  also  King  of 
England,  the  two  kingdoms  w^ere  not  yet  united,  and  the  na- 
tives of  each  were  foreigners  to  the  other.  English  Puritans 
might  fraternize  with  the  National  Church  of  Scotland,  but 
both  alike  abhorred  what  they  called  Brownism.  The  rela- 
tion of  the  Pilgrims  to  their  Dutch  neighbors  seems  to  have 
been  always  friendly  ;  but  the  diversity  of  language  was,  for 
the  first  few  years  at  least,  a  bar  to  religious  communion  with 
them;  and  though  Robinson  acknowledged  that  the  Dutch 
churches  were  formed  on  the  principle  of  separation  from 
the  world,  he  nevertheless  testified,  and  his  church  with  him, 
against  certain  deviations  from  primitive  simplicity  and 
purity  in  the  practice  of  those  churches.  Ecclesiastically, 
the  Pilgrims  at  Leyden  wei-e  alone.  They  had  none  of  the 
strength  that  comes  with  the  consciousness  of  being  com- 
j^rehended  in  a  wide  and  powerful  organization.  All  their 
strength  was  in  their  principles,  and  in  the  confidence  that 
God  w^ould  sustain  their  testimony  for  the  liberty  and  purity 
of  his  church. 

And  what  w^ere  their  arrangements  and  order  as  a  w^or- 
shiping  assembly?  How  frequently  they  met  for  prayer 
and  informal  conference  in  order  to  mutual  edification  can 
not  be  definitely  known ;  but  we  know  that  to  them,  not  less 
than  to  the  Puritans  who  disowned  them,  the  first  day  of 
the  w^eek  w^as  a  holy  Sabbath.  They  observed  that  day  with 
a  stricter  abstinence  from  labor  and  amusements  than  was 
practiced  by  the  Calvinists  of  Holland.  Coming  together 
on  that  day  in  their  pastor's  house,  they  felt,  as  few  congre- 
gations can  feel,  the  closeness  of  the  bond  which  made  them 
one  in  Christ.  On  other  days  and  in  other  places  they  heard 
on  all  sides,  and  were  learning  to  speak,  "  a  strange  and  un- 
couth language ;"  but  in  that  meeting-place,  every  word  on 


238  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH,  XII. 

their  lips  or  in  their  ears  was  their  own  dear  mother  tongue — 
clearer  for  their  being  in  a  land  of  strangers,  and  dearer  yet 
for  the  liberty  they  had  gained  by  exile.  One  in  the  most 
intimate  fellowship  of  faith,  and  in  the  fellowship  of  suflfer- 
ing  for  Christ,  they  were  most  tenderly  conscious  of  their 
unity  when,  coming  together  as  "  strangers  and  pilgrims," 
they  felt  most  deeply  their  seclusion  from  all  the  world  with- 
out. The  arrangements  of  the  room  when  they  met  for  wor- 
ship gave  it  an  informal  consecration,  and  presented  to  their 
eyes  the  simple  order  of  their  church.  Official  seats  were 
there  for  the  elders  (Robinson  and  Bi'ewster),  raised  on  some 
slight  platform,  and  for  the  deacons  at  the  sacramental  ta- 
ble. Nor  was  the  congregation  seated  without  arrangement, 
for  we  may  assume  that  they  had  even  then  a  custom  of  as- 
signing a  seat  to  every  worshiper  in  some  orderly  method. 
At  the  appointed  hour  the  pastor  "  led  the  assembly  in  prayer 
and  the  giving  of  thanks,"  according  to  the  Pauline  rubric : 
"  that,  first  of  all,  supplications,  prayers,  intercessions,  and 
giving  of  thanks  be  made  for  all  men."  Then  their  voices 
were  blended  in  one  of  the  Old  Testament  psalms,  translated 
by  Henry  Ainsworth  out  of  the  Hebrew  into  English  stan- 
zas, with  great  fidelity,  but  with  little  felicity  of  versification. 
Next  came  "  the  exercise  of  the  Word,"  in  conformity  with 
another  rubric :  "  Give  attendance  to  reading,  to  exhortation, 
to  doctrine."^  Two  or  three  chapters  of  Holy  Scripture  were 
read,  "  with  a  brief  explanation  of  their  meaning."  The  pas- 
tor—  in  those  years  the  only  teaching  elder  —  taking  some 
passage  for  a  text,  expounded  and  enforced  it  in  a  sermon. 
But,  in  that  church,  a  ministry  of  gifts  was  recognized  as 
well  as  a  ministry  of  offices;  and,  under  the  presidency  of 
the  elders,  brethren  not  in  office  might  "  prophesy."  The 
truth  held  forth  by  the  pastor  might  be  further  illustrated 
and  applied,  sometimes  by  respectful  questions  on  one  point 
or  another,  sometimes  by  a  word  of  testimony  or  of  exhorta- 

'  1  Tim.  ii.,  1  ;  iv.,  13. 


A.D.  1609-18.]  THE    SOJOURN    AT   LEYDEX.  239 

tion.  Another  psalm  followed  "  the  exercise  of  the  Word." 
Then  came  the  ministration  of  baptism  or  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per; for  to  believing  hearers  the  promises  of  the  Word  wei-e 
"  sealed  "  in  the  sacraments.  Nor  was  their  worship  ended 
without  the  contribution ;  for  that  act  of  sacrifice — each  giv- 
ing according  to  his  ability  and  his  readiness  of  mind  to  the 
support  of  the  church  and  the  relief  of  its  poor — was  neces- 
sary to  the  completeness  of  the  service. 

Besides  the  two  services  on  the  Lord's  day  every  week, 
there  was  a  similar  service  on  a  secular  day,  for  it  is  in  the 
record  of  the  pastor's  labors  that  "he  taught  thrice  a  w^eek." 
A  church  so  conducted  was  a  school  of  religious  knowledge 
and  of  intellectual  discipline  as  well  as  of  devotion.  Preach- 
ing in  those  days  and  in  that  church  was  not  rhetoric  nor 
sentiment  alone,  but  literally  "teaching."  That  chui'ch  was 
in  some  sort  a  school  of  the  prophets — for  it  discovered  and 
tested,  and  at  the  same  time  cultivated,  the  gifts  of  wisdom 
and  of  utterance  in  its  members  by  its  "exercise  of  proph- 
ecy."^     We    may  well   believe    that  the  members  of  that 

^  What  the  "exercise  of  prophecy"  was,  in  the  church  at  Leyden,  is  ex- 
plained in  Robinson's  Catechism.  To  the  question,  "Who  are  to  open  and 
apply  the  Scriptures  in  the  church?"  the  answer  is:  "1.  Principally,  the 
bishops  or  elders,  who,  by  the  Word  of  Life,  are  to  feed  the  flock  both  by 
teaching  and  government,— Acts  xx.,  28.  2.  Such  as  are  out  of  office,  in 
the  exercise  of  prophecy."  Several  arguments  from  the  Scriptures  are  given 
in  proof  of  that  exercise,  the  fourth  and  last  being  an  enumeration  of  "the 
excellent  ends  which,  by  this  means,  are  to  be  obtained :  as,  1 .  The  glory  of 
God  in  the  manifestation  of  his  manifold  graces. — 1  Pet.  iv.,  10,  11.  2. 
That  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  in  men  be  not  quenched. — 1  Thess.  v.,  \9.  3. 
For  the  fitting  and  trial  of  men  for  the  ministry.  —  1  Tim.  iii.,  2.  4.  For  the 
preserving  pure  of  the  doctrine  of  the  church,  which  is  more  endangered  if 
some  one  or  two  alone  may  only  be  heard  and  speak.  —  1  Cor.  xiv.,  24,  25. 
n.  For  debating  and  satisfying  of  doubts,  if  any  do  arise.  6.  For  the  edi- 
f\dng  of  the  church  and  the  conversion  of  others. — Acts  ii.,  42;  Luke  iv., 
21-23."  "A  prophet  in  this  sense"  is  "he  that  hath  a  gift  of  the  Spirit  to 
speak  unto  edification,  exhortation,  and  comfort." — 1  Cor.  xiv.,  4,  24,  25. 
"  The  order  of  this  exercise  "is  "  that  it  be  performed  after  the  public  min- 
istry by  the  teachers,  and  under  their  direction  and  moderation,  whose  duty 


240         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XII. 

church,  with  Robinson  for  pastor  and  teacher,  "grew  in 
knowledge  and  other  gifts  and  graces."  ^ 

It  was  truly  a  great  work  which  Robinson  was  perform- 
ino*  in  those  years  of  exile,  training  the  Pilgrims  for  their 
destiny  of  suffering  and  of  achievement.  What  his  influence 
was  upon  them  is  testified  by  their  own  chronicler  in  words 
too  full  of  pathos  not  to  be  transcribed :  "  Such  was  the 
mutual  love  and  reciprocal  respect  that  this  worthy  man  had 
to  his  flock  and  his  flock  to  him . .  .  that  it  was  hard  to  judge 
whether  he  delighted  more  in  having  such  a  people,  or  they 
in  having  such  a  pastor.  His  love  was  great  toward  them, 
and  his  care  was  always  bent  for  their  best  good  botli  for 
soul  and  body.  For,  besides  his  singular  abilities  in  divine 
things,  wherein  he  excelled,  he  was  also  very  able  to  give 
directions  in  civil  affairs;  by  which  means  he  was  very 
helpful  to  their  outward  estates,  and  so  was  every  way  as  a 
common  father  unto  them.  And  none  did  more  offend  him 
than  those  that  were  close  and  cleaving  to  themselves,  and 
retired  from  the  common  good ;  as  aiso  such  as  would  be 
stiff  and  rigid  in  matters  of  outward  order,  and  inveigh 
against  the  evil  of  others,  and  yet  be  remiss  in  themselves, 
and  not  so  careful  to  express  a  virtuous  conversation.  The 
church,  in  like  manner,  had  ever  a  reverent  regard  to  him, 
and  had  him  in  precious  estimation  as  his  worth  and  wis- 
dom did  deserve;  and  though  they  esteemed  him  highly 
while  he  lived  and  labored  among  them,  yet  much  more  [did 
they]  after  his  death  when  they  came  to  feel  the  want  of  his 

it  is,  if  any  thing  be  obscure,  to  open  it ;  if  doubtful,  to  clear  it ;  if  unsound. 
to  refuse  it;  if  unprofitable,  to  supply  what  is  wanting,  as  they  are  able.  —  I 
Cor.  xiv.,  3,  37;  Acts  xiiL,  15."— Works,  iii.,  432,  433. 

^  An  account  of  the  order  oi  public  worship  in  the  Amsterdam  church  is 
found  in  the  Appendix  to  Robinson's  Works,  iii.,  485.  It  is  a  statement 
which  Clyfton  made  while  he  was  teacher  of  that  church  after  the  with- 
drawal of  Ainsworth  and  his  friends.  It  omits  "the  exercise  of  prophecy;" 
and  that  omission  was,  probably,  a  characteristic  of  Johnson's  church  as 
distinguished  from  Robinson's  and  from  Ainsworth's. 


A.D.  1609-18.]  THE    SOJOURX    AT    LEYDEX.  241 

lie]]),  and  saw,  by  woeful  experience,  what  a  treasure  they 
had  lost.'" 

When  the  Pilgrims  had  become  established  in  Leyden, 
their  pastor  began  to  frequent  the  lectures  in  the  university 
— especially  the  lectures  by  the  two  professors  of  theology. 
The  controversy  in  w^hich  Arminius  and  Gomarus  had  been 
antagonists  at  first,  was  still  kept  up  in  the  universities, 
and  nowhere  more  learnedly  or  more  persistently  than 
there,  where  Arminius  himself  had  propounded  the  doctrines 
which  afterward  Avere  called  by  his  name.  The  two  profess- 
ors of  theology,  Polyander,  defender  of  the  old  Calvinism, 
and  Episcopius,  champion  of  the  obnoxious  novelties  in  doc- 
trine, Avere  agitating  the  university  with  disputes  and  con- 
troversial lectures.  Robinson,  by  carefully  hearing  both 
sides,  by  familiar  conference  with  the  Leyden  divines,  and 
by  his  own  profound  and  accurate  thinking,  made  himself 
master  of  the  questions  at  issue.  He  saw,  or  thought  he 
saw,  that  the  Arminian  theories  concerning  the  relation  of 
God's  purpose  and  power  to  the  going  on  of  nature  and  of 
human  history,  were  shallow ;  and  it  began  to  be  understood 
that  "the  preacher  of  the  English  Society  by  the  Belfry" 
was  an  acute  and  strenuous  disputant.  In  the  progress  of 
that  war  of  dogmas,  Episcopius,  confident  in  himself  and 
in  his  cause,  resorted  to  an  expedient  which  had  not  then 
become  obsolete  in  universities.  He  set  forth  a  series  of 
theses,  or  propositions  challenging  dispute,  w^hich  he  was  to 
defend  against  whoever  might  assail  them.  Such  was  his 
intellectual  stature  and  weight,  and  such  his  "nimbleness" 
in  that  sort  of  fencing,  that  Polyander,  and  "  the  chief 
preachers  of  the  city,"  not  choosing  to  encounter  in  their 
own  persons  the  chances  of  defeat,  entreated  Robinson  to 
enter  the  lists  against  the  challenger.  Declining  their  re- 
quest at  first  with  the  modesty  of  "  a  stranger,"  he  yielded 
to    their  importunity,  and   "  prepared   himself  against   the 

'  Bradford,  p.  18. 


242         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XII. 

time."  The  disputation  was,  of  course,  in  Latin,  the  univer- 
sity language;  so  that  tlie  Dutchman  liad  no  accidental  ad- 
vantage over  the  Englisliman.  On  the  appointed  day  there 
was  "a  great  and  public  audience"  as  at  a  commencement; 
and  the  firm  belief  of  the  Pilgrims,  long  cherished  in  their 
loving  memory,  was  that,  by  the  help  of  the  Lord,  their 
pastor,  in  his  defense  of  the  truth,  foiled  tha-t  great  adver- 
sary, and  "  put  him  to  an  apparent  nonplus."  It  was  also 
afliirmed  that  on  two  similar  occasions  he  achieved  a  similar 
success.  "The  which,"  says  Bradford,  "as  it  caused  many 
to  praise  God  that  the  truth  had  so  famous  victory,  so  it 
procured  him  much  honor  and  respect  from  those  learned 
men,  and  others  that  loved  tlie  truth."  ^ 

The  records  of  the  university  show  that  Robinson  was  in 
due  form — but  not  till  he  had  been  six  years  a  resident  in 
Leyden — incorporated  with  that  renowned  society  of  learned 
men,  and  so  became  a  partner  in  its  privileges.  Thenceforth 
he  was  no  longer  subject  to  the  city  magistrates,  and  was 
so  far  exempted  from  taxation  that  he  might  have,  free  of 
town  and  state  duties,  half  a  tun  of  beer  every  month,  and 
about  ten  gallons  of  wine  every  three  months.^ 

Hoornbeek,  a  learned  theologian  of  that  age,  himself  a 
professor  in  the  same  university,  confirms  the  testimony  of 
the  Pilgrims  as  to  the  estimation  in  which  their  pastor  was 
lield  among  the  learned  men  of  Leyden.  He  says :  "  John 
Robinson  was  most  dear  to  us  while  he  lived,  was  on  famil- 
iar terms  with  the  Leyden  theologians,  and  was  greatly  es- 
teemed by  them.  He  wrote,  moreover,  in  a  variety  of  ways 
against  the  Arminians,  and  was  the  frequent  opponent  and 
bold  antagonist  of  Episcopius  himself  in  the  university." 

^  Bradford,  p.  20,  21. 

2  Sumner,  p.  18,  19.     The  record,  as  transcribed  by  Mr.  Sumner  is  : 
1615 
Sep.  5^  JOANNKS   ROBINTSONUS.  Augbis. 

coss.  pennissu.  Ann.  xxxix. 

Stud.  Tbeol.  alit  familiam. 


A.D.  1609-18.]  TBTE    SOJOURN   AT   LEYDEX.  248 

It  was  not  till  after  his  removal  into  Holland  that  Robin- 
son began  to  be  an  author.  His  first  publication  was  almost 
coincident  in  date  with  his  settlement  in  Leyden.  Joseph 
Hall,  who  had  been  a  companion  with  him  at  the  university, 
and  who  afterward  became  bishop  of  Norwich,  published 
(1608),  when  the  Pilgrims  had  just  escaped  from  their  perse- 
cutors, a  letter  of  rebuke  and  admonition  addressed  to 
Smyth  and  Robinson  as  "  ringleaders  of  the  late  separation 
at  Amsterdam."  To  that  "censorious  epistle"  Robinson 
replied  with  manifest  ability,  and  w^ith  more  of  calmness  and 
courtesy  than  was  usual  in  the  controversial  writings  of  that 
age.  Hall  made  his  answer  in  an  elaborate  w^ork,  entitled, 
"A  Common  Apologie  of  the  Church  of  England  against 
the  Unjust  Challenges  of  the  Overjust  Sect  commonly  called 
Brownists " — a  work  of  which  Robinson  took  no  public 
notice  save  in  the  preface  of  his  reply  to  another  and  more 
earnest  adversary,  but  upon  which  John  Milton  made  some 
scorching  observations,  at  a  later  period,  in  his  controversy 
with  the  same  author.  Notwithstanding  the  position  of 
Bishop  Hall  in  English  literature,  as  well  as  in  the  Church 
of  England,  he  exhibits  no  superiority  in  the  controversy 
wdth  Robinson,  save  the  superiority  of  arrogance.  In  argu- 
ment, in  style,  in  courtesy,  and  in  charity,  the  Pilgrim  pastor 
has  the  advantage  over  his  flippant  and  insolent  adversary. 
One  sentence  from  the  last  page  of  the  "Common  Apologie" 
may  suffice  to  show  what  sort  of  an  adversary  Hall  was: 
"The  mastership  of  the  hospital  at  Norwich,  or  a  lease  from 
that  city — sued  for  with  repulse — might  have  procured  that 
this  separation  from  the  communion,  government,  and  wor- 
ship of  the  Church  of  England  should  not  have  been  made 
by  John  Robinson."  Well  said!  rector  of  Halstead,  looking 
for  preferment!  Is  it  not  a  manly  and  charitable  imputa- 
tion? Why  was  it  that  John  Robinson,  instead  of  aspiring 
to  some  fat  rectory,  sued  for  the  mastership  of  that  hospital? 
Why  was  it  that  he  could  not  have  the  humble  place  for 
which  he  sued?     If  he  were  governed  by  mercenary  consid- 


244         GEXESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.        [CH.  XII. 

erations,  what  hindered  him  from  taking  the  side  which  had 
mercenary  considerations  to  offer  ?  By  taking  that  side,  you 
are  prospering  in  the  world,  and  are  to  be — ere  long — a  bish- 
op and  a  peer  of  the  realm;  while  Ae,  by  taking  the  other  side, 
has  suffered  the  loss  of  all  that  you  have  or  hope  for  in  this 
life,  and  has  become  an  outlaw  and  an  exile. 

Something  is  added  to  our  knowledge  of  what  Robinson 
must  have  been  to  the  Pilgrims,  as  their  pastor  and  teacher, 
by  the  series  of  his  published  writings,  beginning  with  the 
first  year  of  his  exile  and  ending  with  the  year  of  his  death. 
Two  of  his  most  elaborate  works  were  written  to  defend  the 
position  of  the  Separatists  against  Puritan  assailants — "  Re- 
formists," he  called  them,  in  distinction  from  "  Conformists."  ^ 
Another,  originally  published  in  Latin  and  afterward  trans- 
lated by  himself,  was  especially  designed  to  show  both  the 
differences  and  the  agreement  between  the  churches  of  the 
English  exiles  called  Brownists  and  the  Reformed  Dutch 
churches.-  Other  works  of  his — some  very  elaborate — were 
written  in  controversy  with  Separatists  who  carried  their 

^  "  A  Justification  of  Separation  from  the  Church  of  England,  against  Mr. 
Richard  Bernard  liis  Invective,  entituled  'The  Separatists'  Schisme.  By 
John  Robinson.  'And  God  saw  that  the  light  was  good,  and  God  sepa- 
rated between  the  light  and  between  the  darkness.'  Gen.  i.,  4.  'What 
communion  hath  light  with  darkness?'     2  Cor.  vi.,  14.     Anno  D.  1610." 

"The  People's  Plea  for  the  Exercise  of  Prophecy,  against  Mr.  John 
Yates  his  Monopolie,  By  Jolm  Robinson,  '  Follow  after  charity,  and  de- 
sire spiritual  gifts,  but  rather  that  yee  may  prophesy.'  1  Cor.  xiv.,  1.  Print- 
ed in  the  yeare  1618." 

^  "  A  Just  and  Necessarie  Apologie  of  Certain  Christians,  no  less  contume- 
liously  than  commonly  called  Brownists  or  Barrowists.  By  Mr.  John  Rob- 
inson, Pastor  of  the  English  Church  at  Leyden,  first  published  in  Latin,  in 
his  and  the  church's  name  over  which  he  was  set,  after  translated  into  En- 
glish by  himself,  and  now  republished  for  the  special  and  common  good  of 
our  own  countrimen.  '  O  blessed  is  he  that  prudently  attendeth  to  the  poore 
weakling.'     Psalm  xli.,  2.     Printed  in  the  yeere  of  our  Lord  MDC.XXV." 

The  title  of  the  original  work  was,  "Apologia  justa  et  necessaria  quorun- 
dam  Christianorum,  £eque  contumeliose  ac  communiter  dictorum  Brownista- 
rum  sive  Barrowistarum,  per  Johannem  Robinsonum,  Anglo-Leidenensem, 


A.D.  1609-18.]  THE    SOJOURX    AT    LEYDEN.  245 

separation  too  far,  and  bad  gone  beyond  tbe  true  landmarks 
in  matters  of  Christian  doctrine  or  of  Christian  fellowsbij). 
Perhaps  his  works  in  this  line — though  now  of  little  value 
save  as  historic  documents — were  in  their  immediate  influ- 
ence and  in  their  remoter  eflects  more  important  than  any- 
other  productions  of  his  pen.^  He  opposed,  and  in  a  good 
measure  subdued,  the  ultraism  of  some  who  had  preceded 
liim,  or  who  were  his  contemporaries.  The  extravagant  ve- 
hemence of  Robert  Browne,  and  the  tremendous  invectives  of 
Barrowe,  found  no  place  on  his  pages. 

Thus  he  became  a  reformer  of  the  Separation ;  and  to  him 
is  the  honor  due  of  having  introduced  into  Congregational- 
ism that  more  catholic  spirit,  those  broader  views  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ,  and  that  more  conservative  tendency,  by 
which  it  is  distinguished  from  the  strict  Independency  which 
held  no  sort  of  religious  communion  with  any  who  had  not 
renounced  and  forsaken  the  national  churches. 

suo  et  ecclesite  nomine  cui  pvreficitur.  Psa.  xli.,  2  :  '  Beatus  qui  attendit  ad 
attenuatum.'     Anno  Domini  1G19." 

'■  "  Of  Religious  Communion,  Private  and  Public.  With  the  silencing  of 
the  clamors  raised  by  Mr.  Thomas  Helwisse  against  our  retaining  the  Bap- 
tism received  in  England  and  administering  of  Baptism  unto  infants.  As 
also,  A  Survey  of  the  Confession  of  Faith  published  in  certain  conclusions 
by  the  remainders  of  Mr,  Smitli's  company.  By  John  Robinson.  '  The 
simple  believeth  every  word:  but  the  prudent  looketh  well  to  his  going.' 
Prov.  xiv.,  15.     Printed  anno  1014." 

"A  Defense  of  the  Doctrine  propounded  by  the  Synode  at  Dort,  against 
John  Murton  and  his  associates  in  a  treatise  entituled  '  A  Description  Avhat 
God,'  etc.,  with  the  Refutation  of  their  Answer  to  a  writing  touching  Bap- 
tism.    By  John  Robinson.     Printed  in  the  year  U)24." 

"A  Treatise  of  the  Lawfulness  of  Hearing  of  the  Ministers  in  the  Church 
of  England.  Penned  by  that  Learned  and  Reverent  Divine,  Mr.  John  Rob- 
inz,  late  Pastor  to  the  English  Church  of  God  in  Leyden.  Printed  ac- 
cording to  the  copie  that  was  found  in  his  studie  after  his  decease,  and  now 
published  for  the  common  good.  Together  with  a  Letter  written  by  the  same 
Authour,  and  approved  by  his  Church,  which  followeth  after  this  Treatise. 
'Judge  not  according  to  pearance,  but  judge  righteous  judgment.'  John 
vii.,  24.     Printed  anno  1634." 


246  GEXESIS    OF   THE    XEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XII. 

The  only  one  of  Robinson's  works  which  was  not  contro- 
versial, or  in  some  other  way  occasional,  was  published  in 
the  year  of  his  death ;  and,  inasmuch  as  it  bears  no  indica- 
tion of  its  being  posthumous,  the  revision  of  it,  while  it  was 
in  press,  must  have  been  almost  the  latest  labor  of  his  life."^ 
His  "  Essays,  or  Observations  Divine  and  Moral,"  are  weighty 
with  thought,  rich  in  knowledge  of  mankind,  adorned  with 
allusions  to  all  sorts  of  authors,  ancient  or  contemporaneous, 
and  sparkling  occasionally  with  a  kind  of  grave  wit.  Their 
style  is  sententious,  epigrammatic,  and  more  polished  than 
the  author  uses  in  his  controversial  writings.  An  intelligent 
re*ader  can  hardly  avoid  thinking  that  somehow  they  resem- 
ble those  incomparable  Essays  by  Lord  Bacon  which  Arch- 
bishop Whately  has  so  largely  expounded.  Nor  would  it 
be  easy  to  say  why  they  are  not  as  worthy  of  a  permanent 
place  in  English  literature  as  the  Essays  of  Bishop  Hall,  the 
"pensorious"  opponent  of  the  exiled  Separatist. 

Robinson's  "  Essays  "  are,  probably,  of  all  his  Avritings  that 
remain  to  us,  the  most  significant  in  relation  to  the  quality  of 
his  official  "  teaching."  It  is  not  likely  that  any  of  his  ser- 
mons were  committed  to  writing;  certainly  no  specimen  of 
them  has  been  preserved.  His  controversial  works  show 
great  familiarity  with  the  text-book  of  all  Christian  teach- 
ing, a  common-sense  feculty  of  interpretation,  a  habit  of  log- 
ical exactness  and  acuteness  which  is  nowhere  more  impor- 
tant than  in  the  preparation  of  sermons,  and  a  practiced  abil- 
ity in  dealing  with  the  j)rofoundest  themes  of  theology.    But 


^  "New  Essays;  or  Observations  Divine  and  Moral,  collected  out  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  ancient  and  modern  writers  both  divine  and  liuman  ;  as  also 
out  of  the  great  volume  of  men's  manners :  Tending  to  the  furtherance  of 
knowledge  and  virtue.  By  .John  Robinson.  '  Give  instruction  to  a  wise 
man,  and  he  will  be  yet  wiser ;  teach  a  just  man,  and  he  will  increase  in 
learning.'  Prov.  ix.,  9.  '  Experientia  docet  aut  nocet.'  Printed  in  the 
year  1G38." 

Three  editions,  at  least,  of  this  work  were  published  in  seventeen  years. 
The  foregoing  is  the  title  of  the  second  edition. 


A.D.  1609-18.]  THE    SOJOURX    AT    LEYDEN.  247 

it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  his  "teaching"  in  the  church 
was  always  or  often  in  the  same  strain  with  bis  "Defense  of 
the  Doctrine  proj^ouncled  by  the  Synod  at  Dort."  The  "Es- 
says," on  the  contrary,  seem  as  if  he  had  condensed  into  them 
the  thoughts  given  out  or  to  be  given  out,  more  diffusely 
and  more  fiimiliarly,  in  his  sacred. work  of  teaching.  Some 
of  them  are  theological;  all,  with  hardly  an  exception,  are 
strictly  religious  in  theme  and  spirit.  We  might  even  take 
them  as  digested  from  the  notes  or  briefs  which  (not  lying 
before  him,  but  retained  in  memory)  were  his  preparation  for 
feeding  his  flock  with  divine  knowledge. 

For  specimens,  then,  of  the  matter  and  quality  of  the  dis- 
courses which  the  Pilgrims  in  Leyden  heard  from  their  pas- 
tor, we  turn  to  those  "Essays."  Thus  we  learn  that  while 
he  did  not  refrain  from  teaching  in  the  church  those  trans- 
cendent truths  concerning  God's  eternal  thought  and  will 
wdiich  are  in  all  ages  the  themes  of  insatiable  speculation,  he 
could  nevertheless  set  forth  in  lucid  and  winning  statement 
the  love  of  God. 

"  Love  in  the  creature,"  said  he,  "  ever  presupposeth  some 
good,  true  or  apparent,  in  the  thing  loved,  by  which  that  af- 
fection of  union  is  drawn,  as  the  iron  by  the  loadstone;  but 
the  love  of  God,  on  the  contrary,  causeth  all  good,  wrought 
or  to  be  wrought,  in  the  creature.  He  first  loveth  us  in  the 
free  purpose  of  his  will,  and  thence  worketh  good  for  and  in 
us;  and  then  loves  ns  actually  for  his  own  good  work  for 
and  in  ns;  and  so  still  more  and  more  for  his  own  further 
work.  And  hence  ariseth  the  nnchangeableness  of  God's 
love  toward  us,  because  it  is  founded  in  himself  and  in  the 
stableness  of  the  good  pleasure  of  his  own  will.  And  al- 
though the  arguments  of  comfort  be  great  which  we  draw 
from  the  certain  knowledge  of  our  love  to  him,  yet  are  those 
infinitely  greater  which  are  taken  from  the  consideration  of 
his  love  to  us.  .  .  .  And  hereupon  it  was  that  the  sisters  of 
Lazarus,  seeking  help  for  their  sick  brother,  sent  Christ  word, 
not  that  he  who  loved  him  (though  that  were  not  nothing), 


248  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [cH.  XII. 

but  that  'he  whom  he  loved  was  sick.'  .  .  .  He  w^honi  God 
loves,  though  he  know  it  not,  is  a  happy  man  ;  he  that  knows 
it,  knows  himself  to  be  happy.  Which  caused  tlie  apostle  to 
make,  in  his  own  name,  and  in  the  names  of  all  the  'beloved 
of  God'  (Rom.  viii.,  35-39),  that  glorious  insultation  over  all 
the  enemies  of  his  and  their  haj^piness,  that  they  could  not 
separate  him  or  them — not  from  the  power,  or  wisdom,  or 
holiness,  but  not — '  from  the  love  of  God  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus.'  From  this  '  love  of  God,'  as  from  a  springhead,  issu- 
eth  all  good,  both  for  grace  and  glory.  Yea,  by  it  (which  is 
more),  all  evil,  by  all  creatures  intended  or  done  against  us, 
is  turned  to  good  to  us.  .  .  .  By  reason  of  it '  the  stones  of  the 
field  are  at  league  with  us,  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  are  at 
peace  with  us ;'  yea,  even  the  very  sword  that  killeth  us,  the 
fire  that  burnetii  us,  and  the  water  that  drowneth  us,  is  in  a 
kind  of  spiritual  and  invisible  league  with  us,  to  do  us  good. 
...  As  we  may  certainly  know  that  the  sun  shines,  by  the 
beams  and  heat  thereof  below,  though  we  climb  not  into 
heaven  to  see,  so  we  may  have  certain  knowledge  of  God's 
gracious  love  toward  us  without  searching  farther  than  our 
own  hearts  and  ways,  and  by  finding  them  truly  and  effect- 
ually turned  from  sin  to  God."^ 

See  in  what  terms  the  pastor,  teaching  his  flock  what 
"  faith,  hope,  and  charity  "  ought  to  be  in  them,  might  speak 
of  Christian  love : 

"  As  love  is  the  affection  of  union,  so  it  makes,  after  a  sort, 
the  loving  and  loved  one ;  such  being  the  force  thereof  as 
that  he  that  loveth  suffereth  a  kind  of  conversion  into  that 
which  he  loveth,  and  by  frequent  meditation  of  it  uniteth  it 
with  his  understanding  and  affection.  Thus,  to  love  God,  is 
to  become  godly,  and  to  have  the  mind,  after  a  sort,  deified, 
'being  made  partakers  of  the  divine  nature.'  ...  Oh !  how 
happy  is  that  man,  who,  by  the  sweet  feeling  of '  the  love  of 
God  shed  abroad  into  his  heart  by  the  Holy  Ghost,'  is  thereby, 

'  Works,  i.,  4-7. 


A.D.  1609-18.]  THE    SOJOURN    AT    LEYDEX.  249 

as  by  the  most  strong  cords  of  heaven,  drawn  effectually  and 
with  all  the  heart,  to  love  God  again  who  hath  loved  him 
first,  and  so  becomes  one  with  him,  and  rests  upon  him,  for 
all  good."  .  .  . 

"Love  is  the  loadstone  of  love;  and  the  most  ready  and 
compendious  way  to  be  beloved  of  others  is  to  love  them 
first.  They,  taking  knowledge  thereof,  will  be  efiectually 
drawn  to  answerable  good-will,  if  they  be  not  harder  than 
iron,  and  such  as  have  cast  ofiT  the  chains  and  bonds  of  com- 
mon humanity;  for  even  'publicans  and  sinners  love  those 
that  love  them.'  Yea,  admit  thy  love  of  them  never  come 
to  their  knowledge,  yet  will  God,  by  the  invisible  hand  of 
his  providence,  bend  their  hearts  by  mutual  affection  unto 
thee,  at  least  so  far  as  is  good  for  thee.  .  .  .  We  must  not 
be  like  the  Pharisees  who,  instead  of  enlarging  their  own  af- 
fections, straightened  [narrowed]  the  law  of  loving  their 
neighbors  unto  such  as  loved  them  or  dwelt  within  a  certain 
compass  of  them;  but  we  must  account  all  our  neighbors 
that  need  pity  or  heljD  from  us ;  and  our  Christian  neighbors 
and  brethren  also,  if  the  Lord  have  received  them,  though 
they  be  neither  minded  in  all  things  as  we  are,  nor  minded 
towards  us  as  we  are  towards  them."^ 

The  Separatists  were  charged  sometimes  with  heresy,  al- 
ways with  schism.  On  the  topic  of  "heresy  and  schism," 
the  pastor  of  the  Pilgrims  might  hold  forth  light  in  words 
like  these : 

"  Men  are  often  accounted  heretics  with  greater  sin  through 
want  of  charity  in  the  judges  than  in  the  judged  through 
defect  of  faith.  Of  old,  some  have  been  branded  heretics  for 
holding  antipodes;  others  for  holding  the  original  of  the 
soul  by  traduction  ;  others  for  thinking  that  Mary  the  moth- 
er of  Christ  had  other  children  by  her  husband  Joseph — the 
first  being  a  certain  truth;  and  the  second  a  philosophical 
doubt;  and  the  third,  though  an  error,  yet  neither  against 

'  Works,  i.,  01-66. 


250        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XII. 

foundation  nor  post  of  the  Scripture's  building.  As  there 
are  certain  elements  and  foundations  of  the  oracles  of  God 
and  of  Christian  faith,  which  must  first  be  laid,  and  upon 
which  other  truths  are  to  be  built,  so  must  not  the  founda- 
tion be  confounded  with  the  walls  or  roof;  nor  [must]  er- 
rors lightly  be  made  fundamental  or  unavoidably  damnable. 
Yea,  who  can  say  with  how  little  and  imperfect  faith  in 
Christ,  both  for  degree  and  parts,  God  both  can  and  doth 
save  the  sincere  in  heart,  whose  salvation  depends  not  upon 
the  perfection  of  the  instrument,  faith,  but  of  the  object, 
Christ?  On  the  contrary,  there  are  some  vulgar  and  com- 
mon errors,  though  less  severely  censured,  which  are  appar- 
ently damnable — as,  by  name,  for  a  man  to  believe  and  ex- 
pect mercy  from  God  and  salvation  by  Christ,  though  going 
on  in  affected  ignorance  of,  or  profane  disobedience  to  God's 
commandments." 

..."  If  only  an  uncharitable  heart  make  an  unchar- 
itable person  before  God,  and  a  proud  heart  a  proud  per- 
son, then  he  who,  upon  due  examination  and  certain  knowl- 
edge of  his  heart,  finds  and  feels  the  same  truly  disposed  to 
union  with  all  Christians  so  far  as  possibly  he  can  see  it 
lawful — though  through  error  or  frailty  he  may  step  aside 
into  some  by-path — jet  hath  that  person  a  siq:)ersedeas  from 
the  Lord  in  his  bosom,  securing  him  from  being  attached 
as  a  schismatical  person,  and  so  found  in  the  court  of 
heaven — what  blame  soever  he  may  bear  from  men  upon 
earth,  or  correction  from  God,  for  his  failing,  upon  infirmity, 
therein. 

"No  man  can  endure  to  be  withdrawn  from,  nor  easily 
dissented  from  by  another,  in  his  way  of  religion  ;  in  which, 
above  all  other  things,  he  makes  account  that  he  himself 
draws  nearest  to  God.  Therefore  to  do  this  causelessly  (for 
not  the  separation  but  the  cause  makes  the  schismatic), 
though  out  of  error  or  scrupulosity,  is  evil ;  more,  to  do  it 
out  of  wantonness  of  mind,  or  lust  to  contend,  or  affectation 


A.D.  1609-18.]  THE    SOJOURN    AT    LEYDEX.  251 

of  singularity ;  most  of  all,  to  do  it  out  of  proud  contempt  or 
cruel  revenge  against  others."^ 

The  last  essay  is  "  Of  Death."  To  most  of  those  who  had 
loved  and  honored  the  writer  as  their  pastor,  the  first  read- 
ing of  it  must  have  been  when  they  were  "  sorrowing  most 
of  all  that  they  should  see  his  face  no  more."  Surely  they 
must  have  seemed  to  hear  some  of  his  tones  and  cadences, 

as  if 

"  Fi-om  the  sky,  serene  and  far, 

A  voice  fell  like  a  falling  star," 

while  they  read,  through  their  tears,  these  latest  words  of 
teaching  and  of  comfort  from  him  who  had  so  bravely  borne 
with  them  the  heat  and  burden  of  their  day : 

" '  Precious  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  is  the  death  of  his 
saints,'  when  they  'die  for,  or  in,  faith  and  a  good  conscience ; 
as  the  gold,  melting  and  dissolving  in  the  furnace,  is  as  much 
esteemed  by  the  goldsmith  as  any  in  his  shop  or  purse. 
Precious  also  it  is  while  they  live,  and  that  which  God  will 
not  lightly  suffer  to  befall  them.  And  if  he  put  their  tears 
in  his  bottle,  he  will  not  neglect  their  blood,  nor  easily  suffer 
it  to  be  shed ;  neither  doth  death,  when  it  comes,  part  him 
and  them,  though  it  part  man  and  man,  yea  man  and  wife, 
yea  man  in  himself,  soul  and  body.  Friends  show  themselves 
faithful  in  sticking  to  their  friends  in  sickness  and  all  other 
afflictions;  but  they,  how  affectionate  soever,  must  leave 
them  in  death,  and  are  glad  to  remove  them,  and  have  '  their 
dead  buried  out  of  their  sight.'  But  the  fruit  of  God's  love 
reacheth  unto  death  itself — in  which  he  doth  his  beloved 
ones  the  greatest  good,  when  friends  can  do  no  more  for 
them. 

"He  that  said,  'Before  death  and  the  funeral  no  man  is 
happy,'  spake  the  truth,  as  he  meant,  of  the  happiness  which 
can  be  found  in  worldly  things.  But  both  he,  and  they  who 
have  so  admired  his  saying,  should  have  considered  that  he 

'  Works,  i.,  70,  72. 

R 


252  GENESIS    OF    THE    :NEVV    ENGLAND    CHLECHES.       [CII.  XII. 

who  is  not  happy  before  death  in  worldly  things,  can  not  be 
happy  in  them  by  it  which  deprives  him  of  them  all,  and  of 
life  itself,  w^iich  is  better  than  they,  and  for  which  they  are. 
But  miserable,  indeed,  is  the  happiness  whereof  a  man  hath 
neither  beginning  nor  certainty  but  by  ceasing  to  be  a  man. 
The  godly  are  truly  happy  both  in  life  and  death,  the  wicked 
in  neither. 

"  We  are  not  to  mourn  for  the  death  of  our  Christian 
friends,  as  they  which  are  without  hope,  either  in  regard  of 
them  or  of  ourselves ; — not  of  them,  because  such  as  are  asleep 
with  Jesus,  God  will  bring  with  him  to  a  more  glorious  life, 
in  wdiich  we  (in  our  time  and  theirs)  shall  ever  remain  with 
the  Lord  and  them; — not  of  ourselves,  as  if,  because  they  had 
left  us,  God  had  left  us  also.  But  we  should  take  occa- 
sion by  their  deaths  to  love  this  world  the  less,  out  of  which 
they  are  taken,  and  heaven  the  more,  whither  they  are  gone 
before  us,  and  where  we  shall  ever  enjoy  them.     Amen." 


A.D.  1617-20.]       STRUGGLES    AND    SACRIFICES.  253 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

STRUGGLES    AND    SACRIFICES    IN   A    GREAT   ATTEMPT. 

So  long  as  the  Pilgrims  remained  irw  Holland,  they  never 
ceased  to  feel  that  they  were  simply  exiles  from  their  coun- 
try— strangers  in  a  strange  land.  They  were  ever  waiting, 
with  hope  deferred,  for  some  such  change  in  the  policy  of 
the  English  government  as  would  permit  them  to  go  home. 
None  of  them  could  forget  that  the  change  of  policy  which 
took  place  Avhen  Mary  was  succeeded  by  her  half-sister  Eliza- 
beth brought  back  hundreds  of  English  fugitives  from  all 
parts  of  Euro23e.  Who  could  tell  how  soon  the  providence 
of  God,  in  whose  hand  is  "  the  king's  heart  as  the  rivers  of 
water,  and  he  turneth  it  whithersoever  he  will,"  might  open 
the  way  for  their  return  ?  In  that  hope,  they  labored  and 
struggled ;  they  ate  contentedly  the  bread  of  carefulness ; 
they  bore  each  other's  burdens,  fulfilling  the  law  of  Christ ; 
they  married  and  were  given  in  marriage;  they  greeted  the 
birth  of  children  in  their  households,  and  gave  them  to  God 
in  baptism ;  they  buried,  in  hope  of  "  a  better  country,  even 
a  heavenly,"  many  an  associate  in  testimony  and  in  suffering, 
whose  eyes  had  failed  with  longing  for  the  sight  of  dear  old 
England.  In  that  hope,  the  church  for  which  they  had  suf- 
fered, and  which  encircled  them  with  the  bond  of  its  cove- 
nant, grew  dearer  to  them  year  by  year;  the  simplicity  and 
purity  of  its  worship,  the  fidelity  and  eflScacy  of  its  disci- 
pline, and  the  constant  wealth  of  "  teaching"  from  its  honored 
pastor,  were  more  and  more  valued  by  them,  as  showing 
what  might  be  in  England  if  liberty  Avere  there.  But  gradu- 
ally that  hope  was  receding.  While  some  had  found  their 
graves  in  that  foreign  soil,  others  were  growing  old.  What 
was  to  become  of  their  children?      What  would  become  of 


254        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIIL 

their  cliurcli  ?  The  end  of  the  twelve-years'  truce,  which  had 
interrupted  the  long  and  terrible  war  of  the  Dutch  witli 
Spain  for  their  independence  and  their  religion,  was  drawing 
near;  and  then — what?  "Taught  by  experience,"  they  say, 
"  those  prudent  governors  [Robinson  and  Brewster],with  sun- 
dry of  the  sagest  members,  began  both  deeply  to  apprehend 
their  present  dangers  and  wisely  to  foresee  the  future,  and 
think  of  timely  remedy." 

At  first,  these  matters  were  discussed  in  private  conference 
among  the  leading  minds  of  the  community ;  and  the  moi-e 
they  thought  and  talked  in  such  conference,  the  stronger  did 
the  arguments  seem  for  attempting  a  removal.  Twenty-five 
years  earlier,  even  before  the  latest  martyrs  of  Separation 
were  put  to  death,  the  thought  of  migration  to  America  had 
been  entertained  among  the  Separatists  in  England;  and  pe- 
tition for  liberty  to  form  a  Separatist  colony  in  America  had 
been  made  to  Queen  Elizabeth  (1592),  whose  government 
was  at  that  moment  contriving  the  law  by  which  every  per- 
sistent Separatist  should  be  compelled  to  abjure  the  realm 
and  go  into  banishment.  ^  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  pe- 
tition was  answered,  nor  that  it  received  any  attention  from 
the  queen  or  from  her  ministers.  Evidently,  those  who,  at 
that  time,  were  most  intent  on  expelling  the  "Brownists" 
from  England,  were  unwilling  to  see  them  go  without  their 
being  first  punished  by  imprisonment  and  plundered  by  for- 
feiture of  all  their  goods — still  more  unwilling  that  they 
should  have  their  own  schismatic  way  even  in  the  wilder- 
nesses of  America.  The  persecution  which  followed  the  pas- 
sage of  the  "Act  to  retain  the  Queen's  subjects  in  obedience" 
defeated  the  proposed  migration,  notwithstanding  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  petitioners  that  in  the  "far  country"  where 
they  desired  to  plant  themselves,  they,  while  worshiping 
God  "  as  in  conscience  persuaded  by  his  word,"  might  "  also 


'  Editor's  Prefiice  to  Morton's  "Memorial"  as  published  by  the  Congrega- 
tional Board  of  I*ublication.     Boston:,  18^4. 


A.D.  161 7.]  STRUGGLES   AND    SACKIFICES.  255 

do  unto  her  majesty  and  country  great  good  service,  and  in 
time  also  annoy  that  bloody  and  persecuting  Spaniard  about 
the  Bay  of  Mexico."  But,  at  last,  the  thought,  which  may 
have  been  in  Penry's  mind  when  he  sent  his  dying  messages 
to  the  brethren  in  the  north  countries,  and  which  had  been, 
so  long,  like  a  seed  buried  too  deep  to  grow,  came  into  the 
consultations  of  Robinson  and  Brewster,  with  other  "  sagest 
members"  of  the  Pilgrim  church.  In  view  of  present  and 
impending  dangers  incident  to  their  lot  in  Leyden,  they  were 
thinking  of  "  timely  remedy ;"  and  what  remedy  was  there 
but  migration  from  that  old  world  to  the  new?  "Not  out 
of  new-fangledness,  or  other  such  like  giddy  humor,"  were 
they  "  inclined  to  the  conclusion  of  removal."  They  found 
themselves  urged  by  "sundry  weighty  and  solid  reasons" 
which  belong  to  history,  and  which  they  have  put  upon  rec- 
ord for  us. 

"First,  they  saw,  and  found  by  experience,  the  hardness 
of  the  place  to  be  such  that  few  in  comparison  would  come 
to  them,  and  fewer  would  bide  it  out  and  continue  with 
them.  For  many  that  came  to  them — and  many  more  that 
desired  to  be  with  them — could  not  endure  that  great  labor 
and  hard  fare,  with  other  inconveniences,  which  they  under- 
went and  were  contented  with.  But  though  they  loved  their 
l^ersons,  approved  their  cause,  and  honored  their  sufferings, 
yet  they  left  them — as  it  were  weeping  —  as  Orphah  did  her 
mother-in-law  Naomi ;  or  as  those  Romans  did  Cato  in  Utica, 
who  desired  to  be  excused  and  borne  with  though  they 
could  not  all  be  Catos.  Many — though  they  desired  to  en- 
joy the  ordinances  of  God  in  their  purity,  and  the  liberty  of 
the  Gospel  with  them — yet,  alas  !  admitted  of  bondage,  with 
danger  of  conscience,  rather  than  to  endure  these  hardships : 
yea,  some  preferred  and  chose  the  prisons  in  England  rather 
than  liberty  in  Plolland  with  these  afflictions.  It  was  thought, 
therefore,  that  if  a  better  and  easier  place  of  living  could  be 
had,  it  would  draw  many,  and  take  away  these  discourage- 
ments.   Yea,  their  pastor  would  often  say  that  many  of  those 


2.56       GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CIIUKCHES.        [cil.  XIII. 

who  both  wrote  and  preached  against  them,  would  practice 
as  they  did  if  they  were  in  a  place  where  they  might  have 
liberty  and  live  comfortably." 

Such,  then,  in  their  own  simple  statement,  was  the  first 
consideration  urging  them  to  a  removal.  Their  foremost 
thought  was  for  the  cause  in  which  they  had  suffered.  Ought 
they  not  to  dare — and  perhaps  to  suffer — gi'eater  things  in 
the  hope  of  making  a  refuge  for  others  like-minded  with 
themselves  ?  At  the  same  time,  other  considerations,  drawn 
from  their  own  hardships,  apparently  so  ineffective,  and  from 
their  hopes  and  fears  for  their  children,  pointed  in  the  same 
direction. 

The  second  "  weighty  and  solid  reason  "  was :  "  They  saw 
that,  though  the  people  generally  bore  all  these  difficulties 
very  cheerfully,  and  with  a  resolute  courage,  being  in  the 
best  and  strength  of  their  years,  yet  old  age  began  to  steal 
on  many  of  them" — even  before  the  time,  hastened  by  "  their 
great  and  continual  labors,  with  other  crosses  and  sorrows ;" 
and  it  was  becoming  evident  "  that  within  a  few  years 
more  they  would  be  in  danger  to  scatter  by  necessities  press- 
ing them,  or  to  sink  under  their  burdens,  or  both.  There- 
fore they — like  skillful  and  beaten  soldiers — thought  it  better 
to  dislodge  betimes  to  some  place  of  better  advantage  and 
less  danger,  if  any  such  could  be  found."  The  few  who  were 
holding  these  consultations  were  leaders ;  their  conference 
was  like  a  council  of  war.  Willing  as  they  were,  and  will- 
ing as  their  associates  were,  to  struggle  and  suffer  for  the 
Gospel,  they  were  not  willing  to  throw  their  lives  away  with 
no  advantage  to  the  cause,  if,  by  a  timely  retreat,  they  could 
gain  a  more  hopeful  position. 

The  third  consideration  was  still  more  urgent.  What  was 
to  become  of  their  children  there  in  Holland  ?  "  As  neces- 
sity was  a  taskmaster  over  them,  so  they  were  forced  to  be 
taskmasters  not  only  to  their  servants,  but,  in  a  sort,  to 
their  dearest  children — which  was  not  only  painful  to  many 
a  loving  father  and  mother,  but  produced  likewise  sundry 


A.D.  161 7.]  STRUGGLES    AND    SACRIFICES.  257 

sad  and  sorrowful  effects.  Many  of  their  children  that  were 
of  best  dispositions  and  gracious  inclinations,  having  learned 
to  bear  the  yoke  in  their  youth,  and  willing  to  bear  part  of 
their  parents'  burden,  were  so  oppressed  with  their  heavy 
labors  that,  though  their  minds  were  free  and  willing,  their 
bodies  bowed  under  the  weight  and  became  decrepit,  the 
vigor  of  nature  being  consumed,  as  it  were,  in  the  bud.  But 
that  which  was  more  lamentable,  and  of  all  sorrows  most 
heavy  to  be  borne,  was  that  many  of  their  children,  by  these 
occasions  and  the  great  licentiousness  of  youth  in  that  coun- 
try, and  the  manifold  temptations  of  the  place,  were  drawn 
away  by  evil  examples  into  extravagant  and  dangerous 
courses.  .  .  .  Some  became  soldiers,  others  took  upon  them  far 
voyages  by  sea ;  and  some  others,  worse  courses  tending  to 
dissoluteness  and  the  danger  of  their  souls."  With  such  sad 
facts  before  them,  "  they  saw  that  their  posterity  w^ould  be 
in  danger  to  degenerate  and  be  corrupted." 

Other  considerations  were  not  without  weight  in  their  de- 
liberations. Exiles  as  they  were,  they  could  not  forget  that 
they  were  English ;  and  little  as  they  owed  to  king  or  par- 
liament, they  w^ere  loyal  to  their  native  country.  They  could 
not  bear  the  thought  of  losing  their  nationality.  After  all, 
it  was  their  desire  "to  live  under  the  protection  of  England, 
and  that  their  children  after  them  should  retain  the  language 
and  the  name  of  Englishmen." 

Nor  was  that  all.  They  wanted  more  for  their  children 
than  the  inheritance  of  their  nationality.  One  incident  of 
their  poverty,  in  that  foreign  land,  Avas  "their  inability  to 
give  their  children  such  an  education  as  they  had  themselves 
received."  If  they  could  have  a  country  of  their  own,  even 
though  it  were  in  a  wilderness  three  thousand  miles  away, 
they  might  have  English  schools  for  all  their  children. 

It  was  characteristic  of  the  men  that  the  religious  value 
of  the  Christian  Sabbath  entered  into  their  deliberations. 
They  had  been  Puritans,  and,  in  becoming  Separatists,  they 
had  not  surrendered  the  Puritan  doctrine  which  made  the 


258        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIII. 

first  day  of  the  week  a  day  of  holy  rest,  and  recognized  no 
other  day  as  holy.  A  Continental  Sunday,  even  among  Cal- 
vinists,  did  not  seem  to  them  like  God's  institution  in  the 
Decalogue.  How  did  their  hearts  long  for  the  stillness  of 
those  rural  Sabbaths  in  old  England.  "  Their  grief  at  the 
profanation  of  the  Sabbath  in  Holland  "  made  them  weary 
of  that  land,  with  all  the  liberty  it  gave  them.  As  they 
thought  how  tranquil  and  how  full  of  heaven  that  day  might 
be  to  them  in  a  country  all  their  own,  the  thought  was  like 
a  vision  of  the  rest  that  remaineth  to  the  people  of  God. 

But  most  inspiring  of  all  the  reasons  for  so  bold  an  enter- 
prise was  the  one  which  blended  with  every  other,  lifting 
their  consultations  up  to  a  higher  plane;  and  it  would  be  un- 
just not  to  describe  it  in  their  words.  It  was  "  a  great  hope 
and  inward  zeal  they  had.  of  laying  some  good  foundation 
(or  at  least  to  make  some  way  thereunto)  for  propagating 
and  advancing  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  in  those 
remote  parts  of  the  world  ;  yea,  though  they  should  be  but 
stepping-stones  unto  others  for  the  performance  of  so  great 
a  work."  ^ 

After  much  thought  and  prayer,  when  Robinson  and  Brew- 
ster had  taken  counsel  of  such  "  sagest  members  "  as  Carver, 
Bradford,  Winslow,  Cushman,  Allerton,  and  others,  the  ques- 
tion was  brought  before  the  church  :  Shall  we  attempt  to 
found  an  English  colony  in  America  ?  Some  caught  at  once 
the  grand  idea.  Others  doubted.  There  was  a  full  compar- 
ison of  opinions,  and  apparently  a  long  debate.  Fears  and 
discouragements  were  set  over  against  the  greatness  and 
seeming  hopefuUiess  of  the  proposal.  We  know  something 
of  what  was  said  on  one  side  and  the  other. 

The  more  timid  were  appalled  by  the  greatness  of  the  de- 
sign. It  involved  inconceivable  dangers — the  casualties  of 
the  sea — the  hardships  of  the  long  voyage,  unendurable  by 

^  Bradford,  p.  22-24 ;  Winslow,  in  Young,  p.  358  seq.  Bradford's  state- 
ment loses  something  of  its  effect  if  translated  into  nineteenth  century  En- 
glish.    I  have  ventured  to  make  onlv  verv  slight  abridgment. 


A.D.  1617.]  A    GREAT    ATTEMPT.  259 

their  aged  and  feeble  men  and  women — the  liability  to  fam- 
ine and  nakedness,  and  to  the  want  of  all  things.  The  change 
of  air,  too,  and  of  food,  and  "  the  drinking  of  water"  instead 
of  their  customary  beer, "  would  infect  their  bodies  with  sore 
sickness."  If  any  should  escape  or  overcome  such  dangers, 
they  would  yet  be  in  continual  danger  from  "savage  peo- 
ple, cruel,  barbarous,  most  treacherous,  most  furious  in  their 
rage,  and  merciless  where  they  overcome ;"  and  many  were 
the  specifications  of  horrible  torments  to  be  inflicted  by 
those  savages  on  such  as  might  fall  into  their  hands. 

Objections  of  another  sort  were  to  be  considered  by  pru- 
dent men.  The  cost  of  the  voyage  merely  would  be  too 
great  for  their  almost  exhausted  resources.  And  what  was 
the  cost  of  the  voyage,  and  of  personal  outfit,  compared  with 
the  aggregate  expenditure  necessary  to  the  founding  of  a 
colony  in  so  distant  a  wilderness?  Other  attempts,  with 
larger  means  than  they  could  hope  to  command,  had  resulted 
in  miserable  failure.  Ought  not  they  to  learn  caution  from 
what  they  had  already  sufifered,  struggling  for  subsistence 
in  a  civilized  and  hospitable  country  ?  Did  not  their  own 
experience  warn  them  against  going  forth — so  ill-furnished  as, 
at  the  best,  they  must  be — into  a  barbarous  wilderness  on 
the  other  side  of  the  ocean  ? 

These  and  other  like  objections  were  considered,  and  tiie 
answer  was,  "All  great  and  honorable  actions  are  accompa- 
nied with  difficulties  that  must  be  met  and  conquered  with 
corresponding  courage.  What  though  the  dangers  be  great, 
they  are  not  desperate.  What  though  the  difficulties  be 
many,  they  are  not  invincible.  Some  of  the  things  so  great- 
ly feared  may  never  befall  us ;  others,  by  foresight,  care,  and 
good  use  of  means,  may  in  a  great  measure  be  prevented  ;  and 
all  of  them,  by  fortitude,  patience,  and  God's  help,  can  be 
borne  or  overcome.  Such  attempts,  it  is  true,  are  not  to  be 
made  without  good  ground  and  reason  ;  but  have  we  not 
good  ground  and  honorable  reasons  ?  Have  we  not,  in  the 
providence  of  God,  a  lawful  and  urgent  call  to  the  proposed 


260        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIII. 

undertaking  ?  May  we  not,  therefore^  look  for  God's  bless- 
ing upon  it?  Yea,  though  we  should  lose  our  lives  in  this 
action,  yet  may  we  have  comfort  in  the  same,  and  our  en- 
deavors will  be  honorable."  In  a  word,  the  attempt  was 
worth  dying  for. 

There  was  another  aspect  of  the  case,  too  obvious  not  to 
be  considered.  "  What  is  to  befall  us  if  we  remain  where  we 
are  ?  We  know  not  when  or  how  the  war,  now^  soon  to  bo 
renewed,  will  end.  The  Spaniard  can  be  as  cruel  as  the  sav- 
ages of  America.  Famine  and  pestilence  may  be  as  terrible 
here  as  in  the  wilderness ;  and  if  famine  or  pestilence  come 
upon  us  here,  retreat  may  be  dishonorable,  and  escape  or 
remedy  impossible." 

How  long,  and  in  how  many  meetings,  the  question  was 
debated,  we  know  not ;  but  in  the  end, "  it  was  fully  conclud- 
ed by  the  major  part  to  put  this  design  in  execution,  and  to 
prosecute  it  by  the  best  means  they  could."  Whether  they 
were  to  make  the  bold  attempt  was  no  longer  an  open  ques- 
tion. 

Other  questions  followed  in  their  order.  First,  to  what 
transatlantic  country  should  they  go  ?  Guiana,  in  South  Amer- 
ica—  stretching  along  the  coast  between  the  Orinoco  and 
the  Amazon — had  been  not  long  ago  explored  by  Sir  Wal- 
ter Raleigh,  and  was  represented  by  him,  and  by  travelers 
more  recent,  as  a  country  which, "  for  health,  good  air,  pleas- 
ure, and  riches,.  .  .  can  not  be  equaled  by-  any  region  either 
in  the  east  or  west."  Some  were  impressed  with  the  belief 
that  there  was  for  them  the  land  of  promise.  "The  coun- 
try," they  said,  "  was  rich,  fruitful,  and  blessed  witli  a  per- 
petual spring  and  a  flourishing  greenness,  where  vigorous 
nature  brought  forth  all  things  in  abundance  without  any 
great  labor  or  art  of  man.  It  must  needs  make  the  inhab- 
itants rich,  seeing  less  provision  of  clotliing  and  other  things 
would  serve  than  in  colder  and  less  fruitful  countries  must 
be  had.  The  Spaniards,  having  much  more  than  they  could 
possess,  had  not  yet  planted  there,  nor  any  where  near."    But 


A.D.  1617.]  A    GREAT    ATTEMPT.  261 

the  sturdy  sense  of  the  majority  preva:iled  against  these  po- 
etic visions.  Born  and  bred  in  England,  they  conld  not 
endure  the  heat  and  diseases  of  a  tropical  climate.  "  The 
jealous  Spaniard — if  they  should  live  there  and  do  "well — 
would  never  suffer  them  long,  but  would  displant  or  over- 
throw them  (as  lie  did  the  French  in  Florida,  who  were  seat- 
ed farther  from  his  richest  countries)  ;  and  the  sooner,  be- 
cause they  should  have  none  to  protect  them,  and  their  own 
strength  would  be  too  small  to  resist  so  potent  an  enemy." 

On  the  other  hand,  Virginia  was  proposed.  It  was  a  re- 
gion of  which  they  had  little  knowledge ;  but  it  was  w^ithin 
the  northern  temperate  zone,  it  Avas  claimed  by  the  King  of 
Engla,nd,  and  there  "the  English  had  already  made  entrance 
and  beginning."  The  king  had  created,  more  than  ten  years 
ago,  two  great  colonizing  corporations,  dividing  to  them  a 
thousand  miles  of  sea-coast,  that,  by  their  regulated  compe- 
tition, the  empty  claim  of  dominion  might  be  converted  into 
a  substantial  English  empire  in  America.  One  of  those  two 
corporations,  or  Virginia  companies,  was  established  in  Lon- 
don, the  other  at  Plymouth.  Under  the  patronage  of  that 
Lord  Chief  Justice  Popham  who  sentenced  Penry  to  the 
gallows,  there  had  been  an  abortive  attempt,  in  behalf  of 
the  Plymouth  Council,  to  establish  a  colony  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Sagadehock,  in  w^hat  was  then  known  as  North  Vir- 
ginia. A  more  costly  attempt,  by  the  London  Council,  to 
plant  a  colony  on  the  James  River,  in  South  Virginia,  had 
been  continued  through  the  struggles  and  disasters  of  ten 
years  ;  but  had  hardly  ceased  to  be  doubtful.  So  much  of 
"entrance  and  beginning"  had  England  made  in  that  great 
field  of  colonization.  Virginia,  therefore,  measured  off  on  the 
map  from  Cape  Fear  to  Passamaquoddy  Bay,  was  English ; 
and  the  Spanish  power  was  far  away.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Church  of  England — the  National  Church,  identi- 
fied with  the  state — was  there ;  and  there,  as  in  England,  sep- 
aration from  the  National  Church,  and  conformity  to  the 
New  Testament  in  the  worship  of  God,  would  be  under  the 


262        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECflES.       [CH.  XIII. 

ban  of  the  law.  Might  not  the  Pilgrims  find  even  less  of 
safety  and  religious  freedom  there  than  in  England  itself? 

Their  inquiries  terminated  in  this  conclusion :  They  would 
apply  to  the  Virginia  Company  of  London  for  a  grant  of 
territory  on  which  they  could  settle  as  a  distinct  community 
"  under  the  general  government  of  Virginia  ;"  and,  by  the 
mediation  of  their  friends,  they  would  "  sue  to  his  majesty 
that  he  would  be  pleased  to  grant  them  freedom  of  relig- 
ion." Friends  they  had,  "of  good  rank  and  quality,"  who 
liad  encouraged  them  to  hope  for  success,  and  whose  influ- 
ence in  their  behalf  they  thought  would  be  eflfectual,  not  only 
with  the  company,  but  with  the  king.  Especially  do  they 
seem  to  have  relied  on  the  friendship  of  that  "  religious 
gentleman,"  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,^  who,  since  the  time  when 
Brewster  was  placed  as  postmaster  for  Queen  Elizabeth  in 
the  manor-house  of  Scrooby,  had  become  conspicuous  in  Par- 
liament and  elsewhere.  We  may  assume  that  there  had  al- 
ready been  some  communication,  direct  or  indirect,  from  him 
to  them. 

Accordingly,  two  of  the  Pilgrims,  John  Carver  and  Robert 
Cushman,  were  sent  to  negotiate  with  the  council  of  the  Vir- 
ginia Company  at  London,  and  to  present  the  petition  of  the 
exiles  to  the  king  (Sept.,  1617).  They  found  the  Company 
ready  enough  to  grant  all  that  the  Church  asked  for.  In  that 
quarter.  Sir  Edwin  Sandys  had  influence  ;  and  it  was  easy 
for  him,  as  a  member  of  the  London  Council,  to  convince  his 
colleagues  that  the  exiles  at  Leyden,  notwithstanding  their 
antipathy  to  national  churches,  were  the  right  men  for  that 
work  of  colonization.  But  the  application  to  the  king  "for 
liberty  in  religion"  was  unsuccessful.  Their  friends  in  the 
Virginia  Company  had  been  confident  that  so  simple  a  re- 
quest would  be  granted,  and  that  the  grant  would  be  "  con- 
firmed under  the  king's  broad  seal."  In  that  confidence, 
they  und.ertook  to  have  the  petition  laid  before  his  majesty. 

1  Ante,  p.  204. 


A. U.  161 7.]  A    GRExVT    ATTEMPT.  263 

Some  men,  who  were  tliouglit  to  have  influence,  "  labore<l 
with  the  king  to  obtain  it,"  wiiile  others  "  wrought  with  the 
archbishop  to  give  way  thereunto ;  but  it  proved  all  in  vain." 
Neither  the  archbishop  nor  the  king  could  be  made  to  see 
that  men  who  denied  the  theory  of  national  churches,  and 
whom  they  called,  in  contumely,  Brownists  and  Barrowists, 
might  be  tolerated,  even  under  the  condition  of  their  trans- 
porting themselves  into  the  transatlantic  wilderness. 

The  commissioners.  Carver  and  Cushman,  returned  to  Ley- 
den  (in  November),  having  concluded  nothing,  but  bringing 
with  them  a  friendly  letter  from  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  who 
commended  the  discretion  with  which  they  had  conducted 
the  business  committed  to  them,  promised  that  he  and  his 
associates  in  the  Virginia  Council  would  forward  the  pro- 
posed migration  "in  the  best  sort  which  with  reason  may 
be  expected,"  and  religiously  expressed  his  confidence  that 
"  the  design  is  verily  the  w^ork  of  God."  A  second  embassy 
(Carver  and  "  a  gentleman  of  our  company  ")  was  sent  after 
a  few  days  (Dec.  15  =  25),  bearing  a  letter  from  Robinson  and 
Brewster  to  their  "  right  worshipful "  friend,  Sir  Edwin.  In 
that  letter,  the  pastor  and  ruling  elder,  speaking  for  the 
Church  to  encourage  their  "  godly  and  loving  "  patron's  en- 
deavors for  them  "  in  this  weighty  business  about  Virginia," 
gave  him,  as  they  said,  "these  instances  of  inducement." 
Their  own  words  are  the  best  illustration  of  the  story  : 

"  1.  We  verily  believe  and  trust  the  Lord  is  with  us,  to 
whom  and  whose  service  we  have  given  ourselves  in  many 
trials  ;  and  that  he  will  graciously  prosper  our  endeavors  ac- 
cording to  the  simplicity  of  our  hearts  therein. 

"  2.  We  are  well  w^eaned  from  the  delicate  milk  of  our 
mother  country,  and  are  inured  to  the  difficulties  of  a  strange 
and  hard  land,  which  yet,  in  a  great  part,  we  have  by  pa- 
tience overcome. 

"3.  The  people  are,  for  the  body  of  them,  industrious  and 
frugal,  we  think  we  may  safely  say,  as  any  company  of  peo- 
ple in  the  world. 


264        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CIIUKCHES.       [CH.  XIII. 

"  4.  We  are  knit  together  as  a  body  in  a  most  strict  and 
sacred  bond  and  covenant  of  the  Lord,  of  the  violation  where- 
of we  make  great  conscience,  and  by  virtue  whereof  we  do 
hold  ourselves  straitly  tied  to  all  care  of  each  other's  good, 
and  of  the  whole  by  every  one,  and  so  mutually. 

"  5.  Lastly,  it  is  not  with  us  as  with  other  men  whom  small 
things  can  discourage,  or  small  discontentments  cause  to 
wish  themselves  at  home  again.  We  know  our  entertain- 
ment in  England  and  in  Holland;  we  shall  much  j^rejudice 
both  our  arts  and  means  by  removal ;  [and]  if  we  should  be 
driven  to  return,  we  should  not  hope  to  recover  our  present 
helps  and  comforts,  neither  indeed  look  ever,  for  ourselves,  to 
attain  unto  the  like  in  any  other  place  during  our  lives,  which 
are  now  drawing  toward  their  periods." 

While  the  letter  makes  no  allusion  to  any  former  acquaint- 
ance which  the  writers,  or  either  of  them,  may  have  had 
with  .Sir  Edwin,  it  expresses,  nevertheless,  a  most  affection- 
ate confidence  in  his  Christian  sympathy  with  them  in  their 
undertaking.  Referring  gratefully  to  what  he  had  done  for 
them,  they  told  him,  "Under  God,  above  all  persons  and 
things  in  the  world,  we  rely  upon  you,  expecting  the  care 
of  your  love,  counsel  of  your  wisdom,  and  the  help  and  coun- 
tenance of  your  authority."  The  foregoing  "  instances  of  in- 
ducement" were  set  down,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  in- 
oi-easing  his  confidence  in  their  fitness  for  the  work  in  ques- 
tion, as  for  the  sake  of  suggesting  to  him  what  he  in  his  wis- 
dom might  impart  to  other  "worshipful  friends"  in  the 
council. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  agents  of  the  church, 
though  kindly  received  by  the  council  of  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany, found  their  way  blocked  up  in  the  Privy  Council. 
When  Carver  went  to  England  for  the  first  time,  having 
Cushman  for  his  colleague,  it  was  well  understood  that  cer- 
tain prejudices  against  them  as  "Brownists"  must  be  over- 
come. For  that  reason,  a  statement  in  "  seven  articles,"  in- 
tended as  a  disavowal  of  certain  opinions  currently  imputed 


A.D.  1617.]  STRUGGLES    AND    SACRIFICES.  265 

to  the  exiles,  and  as  a  profession  of  loyalty  and  of  Protest- 
ant orthodoxy,  was  prepared  and  subscribed  by  the  elders  in 
behalf  of  the  church ;  and  it  was  hoped  that,  with  so  authen- 
tic a  document  in  their  hands,  the  agents  would  be  able  to 
make  friends  both  in  the  council  of  the  Virginia  Company 
and  among  the  advisers  of  the  king.  That  document  is  so 
important  to  the  business  then  in  hand,  and  exhibits  so  clear- 
ly the  character  and  spirit  of  the  Pilgrims,  that  a  full  state- 
ment of  its  substance  and  meaning  seems  essential  to  our 
story.  ^ 

In  the  first  of  the  "  seven  articles,"  the  church  j^rofessed 
their  concurrence  with  the  Reformed  Churches  of  Holland 
in  assenting  "to  the  confession  of  faith  published  in  the 
name  of  the  Church  of  England."  In  the  second  they  ac- 
knowledged, not  that  the  parishes  in  England  were  churches 
of  Christ,  but  that  "the  doctrine  of  faith,"  in  the  confession 
before  mentioned,  was  eifectual  in  England  "to  the  beget- 
tins:  of  savins^  faith  in  thousands"  who  adhered  to  the  Na- 
tional  Church,  "  conformists  and  reformists ;"  and  there  was 
added  a  guarded  expression  of  their  "  desire  to  keep  spirit- 
ual communion,"  not  only  with  their  "  own  brethren,"  but 
also  with  such  non-separating  believers  "  in  all  lawful  things." 
The  third  article  was  an  acknowledgment  of  the  king  as 
"supreme  governor  in  his  dominion"  —  whether  England, 
Scotland,  Ireland,  or  Virginia — "  in  all  causes  and  over  all 
persons;"  a  denial  of  any  right  to  "appeal  from  his  author- 
ity and  judgment  in  any  cause  whatever;"  and  a  profession 
"that  in  all  things  obedience  is  due  to  him,  either  active — 
if  the  thing  commanded  be  not  against  God's  word — or  pas- 

^  This  document  is  mentioned  by  Sir  Edwin  Sandys  in  his  letter  to  Robin- 
son and  Brewster  (Ante,  p.  263),  but  was  not  known  to  be  in  existence  till 
it  was  discovered,  a  few  years  ago,  in  the  State  Paper  Office  of  the  British 
government  by  Mr.  Bancroft.  A  copy  of  it  was  communicated  by  him  to 
the  New  York  Historical  Society,  and  was  published  in  the  Collections  of 
that  society,  2d  series,  vol.  iii.,  p.  295-302.  It  may  be  found  entire  in  Mr. 
Tunchard's  History,  iii.,  454. 


266        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CUUKCHES.       [CH.  XIII. 

sive — if  it  be — except  pardon  can  be  obtained."  In  other 
words,  the  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
pope  over  the  civil  power  was  unequivocally  repudiated,  and 
with  it  all  the  John-of-Munster  or  so-called  "Anabaptist" 
doctrines  often  imputed  to  the  Separatists ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  right  of  private  judgment,  the  sacredness  of 
individual  conscience,  and  the  majesty  of  God's  law,  were  re- 
served and  guarded  against  the  decrees  of  Nero  or  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, by  the  intimation  that  only  a  "passive  obedi- 
ence," the  unresisting  endurance  of  penalties,  is  due  to  the 
king's  authority  in  conflict  with  the  Word  of  God.  The  fourth 
article  admits  that  it  is  "  lawful  for  his  majesty  " — the  su- 
preme power  in  the  state — "  to  appoint  bishops,  civil  over- 
seers, or  ofticers  in  authority  under  him,  ...  to  oversee  the 
churches  and  govern  them  civilly  according  to  the  laws  of 
the  land ;"  and  that  to  such  officers  for  civil  or  secular  gov- 
ernment the  churches  "  are  in  all  things  to  give  an  account." 
The  fifth  acknowledges  "  the  authority  of  the  present  bish- 
ops "  in  England,  "  so  far  forth  as  the  same  is  indeed  derived 
from  his  majesty  unto  them,  and  as  they  proceed  in  his 
name."  The  sixth,  disavowing  the  doctrine  of  Cartwright 
and  of  Puritanism  in  Scotland,  affirms  "  that  no  synod,  classis, 
convocation,  or  assembly  of  ecclesiastical  officers  hath  any 
power  or  authority  at  all,  but  as  the  same  is  by  the  magis- 
trate given  unto  them."  The  seventh  can  not  be  abridged, 
and  need  not  be  explained.  "  Lastly,  we  desire  to  give  unto 
all  superiors  due  honor;  to  preserve  the  unity  of  the  spirit 
with  all  that  fear  God ;  to  have  peace  with  all  men,  what  in 
us  lieth ;  and,  wherein  we  err,  to  be  instructed  by  any." 

Such  was  the  document  of  which  Sir  Edwin  Sandys  testi- 
ffed  that,  to  "divers  select  gentlemen  of  his  majesty's  coun- 
cil for  Virginia,"  it  was  so  far  satisfactory  that,  "  for  the  pub- 
lic good,"  they  were  resolved  to  aid  the  undertaking.  But 
his  majesty's  Privy  Council  was  not  like  "  his  majesty's  coun- 
cil for  Virginia."  How  to  have  a  thriving  colony,  and  what 
men  could  be  had  that  were  likely  to  begin  another  England 


A.D.  1617.]  A    GREAT    ATTEMPT.  267 

in  America?  were  the  sort  of  questions  for  Sandys  and  his 
associates  of  the  Viroinia  Company.  In  the  more  august 
deliberations  of  the  Privy  Council,  the  right  of  the  National 
Church  to  dominion  over  the  conscience  and  religion  of  all 
Englishmen,  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  seemed  too  evident  to 
be  doubted,  and  too  sacred  to  be  compromised  as  it  would 
be  if  Brownists  should  be  permitted,  any  where  under  the 
king's  protection,  to  worship  God  in  their  own  way  with  im- 
punity. To  mitred  lords,  though' they  might  be  Calvinists 
in  doctrine,  as  Archbishop  Abbott  was,  the  "  seven  articles  " 
were  not  satisfactory.  Might  there  not  be  offered,  in  behalf 
of  the  church,  some  additional  explanation  which  would  help 
their  friends  of  the  Virginia  Company  in  dealing  with  mem- 
bers of  the  Privy  Council  ?  A  letter  was  addressed  by  Rob- 
inson and  Brewster  (1618,  Jan.  27=Feb.  6)  to  Sir  John  Wol- 
stenholme,  a  principal  member  of  the  Virginia  Company,  who 
had  used  "  singular  care  and  pains  "  in  behalf  of  the  applica- 
tion from  Leyden.  He  may  have  been  one  of  those  who 
"  labored  with  the  king,"  possibly  one  of  those  who  "  wrought 
with  the  archbishop."  To  him,  therefore,  the  two  elders, 
officially  representing  the  church,  sent  the  additional  expla- 
nation. "Some  of  his  majesty's  honorable  Privy  Council" 
had  specified  three  points  on  which  the  seven  articles  were 
not  sufficiently  clear — "  the  ecclesiastical  ministry,"  the  sac- 
raments, and  the  oath  of  supremacy.  Concerning  these 
points  the  Leyden  petitioners  had  not  thoroughly  purged 
themselves  of  opinions  and  practices  too  dangerous  to  be 
tolerated  even  three  thousand  miles  away.  "Though  it  be 
grievous  to  us,"  said  the  elders,  "that  such  unjust  insinua- 
tions are  made  against  us,  yet  we  are  most  glad  of  the  occa- 
sion of  making  our  purgation  unto  so  honorable  personages." 
They  inclosed  their  "  further  explanation  "  in  two  forms — 
"  the  one  more  brief  and  general,"  which  in  their  judgment 
was  "  the  fitter  to  be  presented ;"  "  the  other  something  more 
large,"  and  expressing  "  some  small  accidental  differences  " 
between  tlieir  own  churches  and  those  of  the  French  Prot- 

S 


268        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND   CHURCHES.      [CH.  XIIL 

estants.  Sir  John,  "  and  other  of  the  worshipful  friends  " 
who  had  the  matter  in  their  charge,  might  send  either  form 
of  the  explanation,  as  to  them  might  seem  good ;  and  from 
him  they  hoped  to  receive  "  knowledge  of  the  success  of  the 
business  with  his  majesty's  Privy  Council."  From  the  mes- 
senger who  delivered  the  letter  to  Sir  John,  and  who  waited 
while  he  read  both  the  letter  and  the  explanation,  we  have 
an  almost  dramatic  rehearsal  of  the  interview.  Writing  to 
Robinson  and  Brewster  (Feb.  14),  he  reports: 

"There  were  two  papers  inclosed:  he  read  them  to  him- 
self, as  also  the  letter,  and  in  the  reading  he  spake  to  me 
and  said,  'Who  shall  make  them?'" — videlicet,  the  ministers. 

"  I  answered  his  worship  that  the  power  of  making  was 
in  the  church,  [and  that  the  ministers  were]  to  be  ordained 
by  the  imposition  of  hands  by  the  fittest  instruments  they 
liad.  It  [the  power  of  making  and  ordaining  ministers]  must 
be  in  the  church  or  from  the  pope,  and  the  pope  is  Anti- 
christ. 

"*Ho  !'  said  Sir  John, '  what  the  pope  holds  [that  is  true 
and]  good — as  in  the  Trinity,  that  we  do  well  to  assent  to. 
But,'  said  he, '  we  will  not  enter  into  dispute  now.' 

"As  for  your  letters,  he  would  not  show  them  at  any 
hand,  lest  he  should  spoil  all.  He  expected  you  should  have 
been  of  the  archbishop's  mind  for  the  calling  of  ministers ; 
but  it  seems  you  differed." 

Sir  John  Wolstenholme  was  shrewd  enough  to  see  that 
the  more  his  Leyden  friends  explained  themselves  "touching 
the  ecclesiastical  ministry"  and  "the  two  sacraments,"  the 
more  manifest  would  the  difference  be  between  their  judg- 
ment and  "the  archbishop's  mind."  Their  view  of  Chris- 
tianity excluded  the  theory  of  a  sacerdotal  order  ruling  the 
universal  church  of  God,  dispensing  God's  grace  by  manipu- 
lation of  the  sacraments,  and  perpetuating  itself  by  the  mys- 
terious efficacy  of  ordination.  No  priesthood  would  they 
acknowledge  save  the  High -priesthood  of  Christ,  and  the 
universal  priesthood  of  his  followers,  all  brethren,  and  all 


A.D.  1618.]  STEUGGLES    AND    SACRIFICES.  269 

kings  and  priests  unto  God.  On  the  other  hand,  sacerdotal- 
ism and  sacramentalism  were  essential  to  Christianity  ac- 
cording to  Bancroft.  First,  a  priesthood,  mediating  between 
God  and  the  souls  of  men,  and  lording  it  over  God's  heri- 
tage— then  sacraments,  operating  not  by  their  significance 
to  the  intelligent  mind  and  devout  sensibilities  of  the  believ- 
er, but  by  their  validity  in  priestly  hands — were  the  Jachin 
and  Boaz  of  that  national  temple  wherein  King  James  was 
the  Solomon,  and  "my  Lord's  Grace  of  Canterbury"  the  high- 
priest.  The  elders  of  the  Leyden  Church  knew  what  the  ex- 
planation was  which  their  opponents  in  the  Privy  Council 
expected  on  those  two  points — "the  ecclesiastical  ministry" 
and  "the  sacraments;"  and,  therefore,  instead  of  rushing 
into  a  dispute  which  might  be  fatal  to  their  cause,  they  sim- 
ply professed  their  agreement  on  both  points  with  the  French 
Reformed  churches.  Sir  John,  on  the  other  hand,  finding 
that  they  would  not  profess  to  be  "  of  the  archbishop's 
mind"  on  either  point,  promptly  decided  that  neither  form 
of  their  "further  explanation"  should  be  submitted  to  the 
Privy  Council.  He  thought  he  had  already  gained  at  least 
as  much  as  was  likely  to  be  gained  by  more  protracted  nego- 
tiation. "  The  king's  majesty  and  the  bishops,"  he  said,  had 
"  consented."  But  what  they  had  consented  to,  he  did  not 
venture  to  tell.  He  would  go  to  the  chancellor  that  day ; 
and  "next  week"  the  messenger  who  had  brought  him  that 
letter  from  Leyden  "should  know  more."  Probably  he  was 
then  hoping  for  what,  as  afterward  appeared,  could  not  be 
obtained.  All  negotiations  with  the  Privy  Council  to  obtain 
for  the  Pilgrims  a  valid  permission  to  organize  their  own  re- 
ligious institutions,  and  to  worship  God  according  to  their 
own  convictions,  in  a  colony  by  themselves  under  the  gen- 
eral government  of  the  Virginia  Company,  were  baflied  by 
the  obstinacy  of  the  archbishop  and  the  folly  of  the  king. 
What  "  the  king's  majesty  and  the  bishops "  consented  to 
was  a  vague  promise,  in  words  which  were  only  breath,  that 
James  Stuart,  w^hose  reputation  for  fidelity  to  such  engage- 


270       GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIII. 

ments  was  not  good,  "would  connive  at  them,  and  not  mo- 
lest them,  provided  they  carried  themselves  peaceably."  This 
was  all  that  could  be  gained  for  them.  Yet  the  chief  men 
of  the  Virginia  Company,  and  other  friends  of  theirs  in  En- 
gland, advised  them  to  proceed  with  their  plan  of  removal, 
"presuming"  that  they  would  not  be  troubled. 

Four  months,  at  least,  had  passed  in  these  negotiations; 
and  nothing  had  been  concluded.  When  Carver  and  his  as- 
sociate returned  from  that  second  mission  in  England,  their 
report  "  made  a  damp  in  the  business."  Some  of  the  church 
could  not  see  that  it  was  right  to  proceed  under  such  condi- 
tions. Ought  they  to  detach  themselves  from  their  homes 
and  occupations,  to  dispose  of  their  property,  and  to  remove 
into  the  wilderness  beyond  the  ocean,  all  uncertain  wheth- 
er they  would  not  there,  as  in  England, be  "vexed  with  ap- 
paritors and  pursuivants  and  commissary  courts"  enforcing 
the  Act  of  Uniformity,  and  equally  uncertain  whether  they 
would  not  find  themselves  again  under  the  High  Commission 
for  causes  ecclesiastical  ?  Better  would  it  have  been  to  go 
without  making  any  request  to  the  king,  than  to  go  now, 
having  had  their  petition  considered  in  the  Privy  Council 
and  rejected.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  said  that  the 
king,  as  their  best  friends  in  England  had  advised  them, "  was 
willing  enough  to  suffer  them  without  molestation,  though 
for  other  reasons" — for  the  sake  of  consistency,  and  for  the 
sake  of  pleasing  the  bishops — "he  would  not  confirm"  that 
verbal  and  indefinite  promise  "by  any  public  act."  That 
promise,  or  less  than  promise,  of  mere  connivance  they  at 
last  concluded  to  accept,  "  resting  on  God's  providence  as 
they  had  done  in  other  things ;"  and  wisely  comforting  them- 
selves with  the  argument  that, "  if  there  were  no  security  in 
the  promise  intimated,  there  would  be  no  great  certainty  in 
a  further  confirmation  of  the  same."  It  was  evident  that, 
had  their  petition  been  granted,  "  if  afterward  there  should 
be  a  purpose  or  desire  to  wrong  them,  though  they  had  a 
seal  as  broad  as  the  house  floor,  it  would  not  serve  the  turn. 


A,D.  1618.]  STRUGGLES    AND    SACRIFICES.  271 

for  there  would  be  means  enough  found  to  recall  or  reverse 
it." 

Having  arrived  at  this  conclusion,  they  were  ready  to  fin- 
ish their  negotiation  with  the  Virginia  Company  ;  and  Brew- 
ster and  Cushman  were  sent  to  London  as  agents  for  the 
church  in  that  transaction.  They  were  "  to  procure  a  patent 
with  as  good  and  ample  conditions  as  they  might  by  any 
good  means  obtain."  At  the  same  time  they  were  empow- 
ered "to  treat  and  conclude  with"  certain  "merchants  and 
other  friends"  who  had  intimated  their  willingness  to  ad- 
venture capital  in  the  undertaking.  But  their  commission, 
especially  in  regard  to  a  contract  with  the  capitalists,  was 
carefully  limited.  If  the  conditions  on  which  the  Pilgrims 
insisted  were  not  consented  to  on  the  other  side,  they  were 
to  conclude  nothing  without  new  instructions. 

We  have  some  remarkable  evidences  of  how  quietly  and 
cautiously  those  agents  went  about  their  business.  Their  go- 
ing from  Leyden  seems  to  have  been  as  secret  as  if  they  had 
been  criminals  escaping  from  justice.  They  had  not  been 
long  absent  when  Sir  Dudley  Carleton,  the  English  embassa- 
dor, is  found  taking  measures  to  have  Brewster,  as  printer, 
and  Brewer^  as  proprietor  of  the  press,  arrested  for  the  of- 
fense of  printing  certain  books  of  a  sort  which  had  been  pro- 
hibited in  Scotland  by  royal  authority.  King  James  had 
been  at  work  for  some  time,  in  his  arbitrary  and  blundering 
way,  to  subvert  the  Presbyterian  government  of  the  National 
Church  in  his  native  kingdom,  and  to  establish  there  the  ec- 
clesiastical system  which  he  admired  in  England,  and  which 
he  had  found  so  subservient  to  his  vanity  and  to  his  passion 
for  governing  by  a  divine  right  superior  to  all  human  laws. 
In  the  prosecution  of  that  design,  he  had  suppressed  the 
printing  of  Presbyterian  books  in  Scotland.  Consequently, 
books  of  that  sort,  written  in  Scotland,  were  printed  in  the 
free  Netherlands.  Two  were  supposed  to  have  been  printed 
by  Brewster.  At  that  crisis,  the  Dutch  republic  could  ill 
aiford  to  quarrel  with  the  King  of  England  and  Scotland  on 


272        GENESIS    OF   TUE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.      [CH.  XIII. 

a  point  of  international  law,  and  it  was  prudent  for  the  au- 
thorities to  make  some  show,  at  least,  of  compliance  with 
his  wishes  intimated  through  his  embassador.  On  the  9th 
(=:19th)  of  July,  an  agent  of  Sir  Dudley  reported  from  Am- 
sterdam that,  after  diligent  inquiry  there  concerning  Brew- 
ster among  those  who  knew  him  well,  there  was  no  evidence 
that  he  was  not  still  "dwelling  and  resident  at  Leyden ;" 
furthermore,  that  there  was  no  probability  of  his  removing 
to  Amsterdam,  inasmuch  as  another  Brownist  printer  was 
already  settled  in  that  city ;  and  the  discouraging  hint 
was  added,  "If  he  lurk  here  for  fear  of  apprehension,  it  will 
be  hard  to  find  him."  Three  days  later  (July  12  =  22)  the 
embassador  wrote  that  "within  three  weeks"  Brewster  had 
removed  from  Leyden,  and  gone  back  to  live  in  London, 
where  he  might  be  "found  out  and  examined."  On  the  10th 
(=20th)  of  August,  he  had  made  good  inquiry  at  Leyden, 
and  was  well  assured  that  the  subject  of  the  inquiry  had 
not  returned  to  that  place,  but  had  removed  his  family  and 
goods.  Three  w^eeks  later  (Sept.  2  =  12),  he  had,  in  a  pre- 
vious dispatch,  announced  "  that  Brewster  was  taken  at  Ley- 
den," and  was  then  under  the  disagreeable  necessity  of  con- 
tradicting that  report,  because  the  officer  making  the  arrest 
had  "taken  one  man  for  another."  At  the  end  of  another 
week  (Sept.  9  =  19),  the  municipal  authorities  of  Leyden  be- 
lieved that  Brewster  was  "in  town  at  present,  but  sick." 
In  four  days  more  (Sept.  13  =  23),  having  made  an  attempt 
(feigned  or  earnest)  to  arrest  him,  they  found  that  he  "had 
already  left"  the  city.^ 

All  that  while  the  undiscoverable  printer  had  been  just 
where  we  might  suppose  the  English  government  would 
most  easily  find  him ;  and  letters  had  been  occasionally  ex- 
changed between  him  and  his  friends  at  Leyden.  Just  about 
four  months  before  the  dispatch  in  which  Sir  Dudley  mis- 
takenly announced  to  his  majesty's  secretary  of  state  "  that 

^  Waddington,  "Hidden  Church,"  p.  210-227. 


A.D.  1619.]  A    GREAT    ATTEMPT.  273 

Brewster  was  taken  at  Leyden  "  (May  8  =  18),  the  two  agents 
for  the  Pilgrims  had  been  in  London  long  enough  to  have 
completed  their  business  had  they  not  been  hindered  by 
troubles  arising  in  the  Virginia  Company.  At  that  time, 
"Mr.  Brewster"  was  "not  w^ell;"  but  whether  he  would  go 
back  to  Leyden, "  or  go  into  the  north,"  his  colleague  in  the 
mission  did  not  know.  Such  were  the  factions  and  conten- 
tions in  the  council  and  among  the  members  of  the  Virginia 
Company  that  no  business  could  be  transacted  with  them. 
Ill  tidings,  too,  from  the  unfortunate  Colony  in  Virginia  dark- 
ened the  prospect.  Cushman  was  going  "  down  into  Kent," 
and  would  "come  up  again"  in  two  or  three  weeks,  expect- 
ing that  then  the  business  on  which  he  had  been  sent  would 
be  soon  finished — unless,  in  consideration  of  all  these  dis- 
couragements, it  should  be  abandoned. 

How  long  they  were  thus  hindered  does  not  appear.  At 
last,  after  "  their  long  attendance,"  the  Company  having  been 
brought  again  into  working  order,  the  desired  patent  was 
granted  and  "  confirmed  under  the  Company's  seal."  But 
the  delay,  and  the  "divisions  and  distractions"  that  caused 
it,  had  estranged  some  who  might  otherwise  have  continued 
to  befriend  them,  and  on  whose  oflfers  of  capital  for  the  en- 
terprise they  had  relied.  Yet  one  member  of  the  Company 
lent  them  three  hundred  pounds  without  interest  for  three 
years — a  loan  which,  notwithstanding  their  poverty,  was 
honestly  repaid.^ 

^  Winslow,  in  Young,  p.  383.  Bradford  says :  "  By  the  advice  of  some 
friends,  this  patent  was  not  taken  in  the  name  of  any  of  their  own,  but  in 
the  name  of  Mr.  John  Wincob  (a  religious  gentleman  then  belonging  to  the 
Countess  of  Lincoln),  who  intended  to  go  with  them.  But  God  so  disposed 
as  he  never  went,  nor  they  ever  made  use  of  this  patent,  which  had  cost  them 
so  mucli  labor  and  charge." 

Perhaps  the  odium  attached  to  the  names  of  the  Leyden  Pilgrims,  as  de- 
clared and  exiled  Separatists,  was  the  reason  of  the  advice  that  only  the 
name  of  "  a  religious  gentleman  then  belonging  to  the  Countess  of  Lincoln  " 
should  appear  in  the  patent.  This  is  the  first  but  not  the  last  mention  of 
that  noble  family  in  the  story  of  New  England. 


274        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIII, 

It  must  have  been,  at  the  earliest,  late  in  the  autumn  (more 
than  two  years  after  the  first  attempt  at  negotiation)  when 
Cushman,  leaving  Brewster  in  England,  returned  to  Leyden 
with  the  long-desired  patent.  He  reported,  also,  to  the 
church  the  progress  which  he  and  his  associate  in  the  agency 
had  been  able  to  make  in  matters  which  w^ere  really  more 
important.  Brethren  had  been  found  in  England  who  were 
proposing  to  go  with  the  Pilgrims.  Friends  had  been  found 
who  would  make  a  venture  of  capital,  where  they  were  ex- 
pecting to  adventure,  not  only  all  their  worldly  estate,  but 
their  lives  also — and  lives  dearer  to  them  than  tlieir  own. 
Certain  merchants,  "on  whom  they  did  chiefly  depend  for 
shipping  and  means,"  had  made  "large  proffers" — especially 
"one  Mr.  Thomas  Weston" — and  the  church  was  invited  to 
make  ready  with  all  speed  for  its  intended  migration. 

The  question  had  become  more  definite  than  on  any  former 
occasion.  Shall  we  accept  these  "  large  proffers,"  and  enter 
into  the  partnership  to  which  those  London  merchants  and 
other  friends  invite  us?  Before  deciding  the  question,  "they 
had  a  solemn  meeting  and  a  day  of  humiliation  to  seek  the 
Lord  for  his  direction."  Their  pastor's  discourse  to  them,  on 
that  fast-day,  was  from  the  text,  "And  David's  men  said 
unto  him,  See,  we  be  afraid  here  in  Judah  :  how  much  more 
if  we  come  to  Keilah  against  the  host  of  the  Philistines? 

It  is  not  strange  that  no  copy  of  that  patent  has  been  found.  As  rhe 
Pilgrims  were  unable  to  make  it  useful,  they  saw  no  reason  for  preserving 
the  worthless  parchment.  Its  only  value  to  them  was  that  it  made  them 
(had  they  been  able  to  use  it)  the  legal  proprietors — against  all  English 
claimants — of  a  definite  though  unknown  territory,  in  which  they  might  be- 
come a  distinct  community  under  the  general  government  of  the  Virginia 
Company  in  London,  and  under  such  protection  as  that  corporation  might 
be  able  to  give  them. 

The  territory  granted  to  them  by  the  company  is  believed  to  have  been 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson,  where  the  Dutch  had  already  made  a  begin- 
ning. Had  they  prospered  according  to  their  hopes,  "Plymouth  Rock' 
might  have  been,  perhaps,  somewhere  in  what  is  now  the  State  of  New 
Jersev. 


A. D.  1619.]  A    GREAT   ATTEMPT.  275 

Then  David  asked  counsel  of  the  Lord  again.  And  the  Lord 
answered  him  and  said,  Arise,  go  down  to  Keilah,  for  I 
will  deliver  the  Philistines  into  thine  hand."^  It  was  long 
remembered  by  the  hearers  that,  from  that  text,  "he  tauglit 
many  things  very  aptly,  and  befitting  their  present  occasion 
and  condition,  strengthening  them  against  their  fears  and 
perplexities,  and  encouraging  them  in  their  resolutions." 

After  that  religious  preparation,  the  question  was,  Who 
shall  go  first  ?  The  entire  body  of  the  church  could  not  go 
at  once ;  for  so  large  an  expedition  was  beyond  their  means, 
and  was  every  way  inexpedient.  Some  were  too  old,  or 
otherwise  too  feeble,  for  the  hardships  which  the  pioneers  of 
a  new  colony  must  encounter.  Others  could  not  immedi- 
ately withdraw  themselves  from  their  affairs  in  Leyden. 
From  among  those  who  were  willing  to  go  first,  and  could 
speedily  complete  their  preparation  for  going,  a  competent 
number  (as  they  judged)  were  selected  for  the  first  expe- 
dition. The  majority  were  to  remain  behind  for  a  time,  and 
it  was  their  desire  that  the  pastor  should  remain  with  them, 
— which  was  the  more  readily  agreed  to,  because  for  some 
other  reason  it  was  inconvenient  for  him  to  remove  just  then. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  pioneers  obtained  the  privilege  of 
being  accompanied  by  the  pastor's  colleague  in  the  over- 
sight of  the  flock,  Bre^vster,  who  was  still  in  England. 

The  question  was  considered  whether,  w^hen  divided,  at 
least  for  a  time,  by  the  breadth  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  they 
were  to  be  two  churches  or  only  one.  Should  those  who 
were  going  out  be  dismissed,  and  so  become  a  new  church, 

'  1  Sam.  xxiii.,  3,  4.  Bradford's  quotations  from  the  Bible  are  in  the 
words  of  the  Geneva  translation.  The  translation  now  in  use  (made  bv 
order  of  King  James)  Avas  a  novelty  to  the  exiles  at  Leyden ;  and  the  author- 
ity by  which  it  w^as  made  ("his  majesty's  special  command''),  and  "ap- 
pointed to  be  read  in  churches,"  did  not  very  much  commend  it  to  their 
prejudices.  The  introduction  of  King  James's  version  into  the  churches  and 
families  of  the  Separatists  was  effected  gradually,  as  the  former  translations 
ceased  to  be  reprinted. 


276  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.      [CH.  XIII. 

to  which  those  who  were  to  follow  might  come  with  letters 
of  commendation  and  dismissal,  till  the  Leyden  church,  in 
which  their  fellowship  had  been  so  pleasant  and  so  profitable, 
should  be  extinct  ?  Under  the  guidance  of  Robinson,  they 
disposed  of  that  question,  and  of  all  future  questions  about 
the  identity  of  the  church  that  was  to  exist  in  the  colony 
with  the  church  of  their  exile  at  Leyden  and  of  their  earlier 
afflictions  at  Scrooby.  Their  mutual  understanding  was 
that,  while  the  migration  should  be  in  progress,  neither  por- 
tion of  the  church  should  be  subordinate  to  the  other;  that 
the  majority,  on  whichever  side  of  the  ocean,  should  not  gov- 
ern the  minority  on  the  other  side;  that  each  portion,  whether 
majority  or  minority,  should  be  the  church  to  the  members 
present  with  it,  and  should  perform  toward  them — and  they 
toward  each  other — all  the  duties  of  their  sacred  fraternity ; 
and  that  members  migrating  to  the  colony,  or  returning 
thence,  should  be  received  without  dismissal  or  testimonial, 
till  the  entire  church  should  have  passed  over  into  its  land 
of  promise.  Thus  Brewster,  going  over  in  the  first  expe- 
dition, would  be  ruling  elder  in  the  colony,  and  Robinson — 
whenever  he  might  follow — would  be  pastor,  without  any 
new  ordination  or  election. 

Not  long  before  these  preparations  were  begun,  the  Pil- 
grims were  favored  with  a  visit  from  "  one  Mr.  Thomas  Wes- 
ton," a  London  merchant  with  whom  some  of  them  had  been 
acquainted,  and  who  had  given  them  some  aid  in  their  former 
proceedings.  He  came  with  a  plausible  appearance  of  friend- 
ship and  of  godliness — greatly  interested  in  their  heroic  en- 
terprise, and  seemingly  ready  to  make  large  sacrifices  for  it. 
He  gained  their  confidence,  and  was  especially  trusted  by 
Robinson.  At  his  persuasion,  they  declined  the  invitation 
which  they  had  received  from  a  trading  company  at  Amster- 
dam to  settle  under  Dutch  protection  and  patronage  in  the 
New  Netherlands.  He  advised  them  not  to  depend  too  much 
on  the  Virginia  Company  for  assistance  in  founding  their 
colony,  and  assured  them  that  should  their  hopes  in  that 


A.D.  1 6 1  9.  ]  A   GREAT   ATTEMPT.  277 

quarter  fail,  they  need  not  be  discouraged.  Let  tliem  reso- 
lutely use  their  own  means,  and  "  he  and  such  merchants  as 
were  his  friends  would  set  them  forth."  He  promised  that 
what  they  could  not  provide  from  their  own  resources  should 
be  provided  for  them ;  therefore  "  they  should  make  ready, 
and  neitlier  fear  w^ant  of  shipping  nor  of  money."  At  his 
suggestion,  a  prospectus  was  drawn  up,  entitled  "Articles  of 
Agreement,"  and  exhibiting  the  formal  contract  which  the 
Pilgrims  w^ere  willing  to  make  with  him  and  "  such  friends 
as  he  should  procure  to  adventure  in  this  business." 

Those  articles,  having  been  approved  by  him  as  sufficient 
for  his  purpose  of  inducing  his  friends  to  venture  capital  in 
the  enterprise,  were  deliberately  sanctioned  by  the  Pilgrim 
community  as  a  statement  of  the  responsibilities  Avhich  were 
to  be  assumed  on  their  part.  Carver  was  sent  into  England 
to  be  associated  with  Cushman  in  making  the  proposed  con- 
tract, in  receiving  the  money  wiiich  "  the  Adventurers"  were 
to  contribute,  in  purchasing  or  hiring  vessels  for  the  trans- 
portation of  the  first  company,  and  in  making  all  necessary 
provisions  and  arrangements  for  their  voyage  and  their  settle- 
ment. At  the  same  time  a  committee  was  chosen  to  super- 
intend the  enterprise  at  Leyden.  Those  who  were  to  go  in 
the  first  expedition  "sold  off"  their  estates;"  and  whatever 
they  had,  more  than  was  necessary  to  their  personal  outfit  or 
that  of  their  families,  was  put  into  "the  common  stock" 
which  was  to  be  for  the  common  benefit  of  the  colony. 
Every  family  had,  of  course,  its  own  perplexities  in  deciding 
what  of  its  household  stuff"  to  dispose  of  and  what  to  retain 
for  a  new  home.  Often,  when  the  question.  Can  we  part 
with  this,  and  do  w^ithout  it  in  the  wild  country  we  are  go- 
ing to?  had  been  answered  with  a  resolute  No,  a  more  im- 
perative No  would  answer  the  other  question.  Can  there  be 
found  room  for  it  in  the  crowded  vessel  ?  Day  by  day,  all 
hands  were  busy  in  the  various  work  of  preparation.  Day 
and  night,  all  their  hearts  —  sometimes  aching  in  sadness, 
sometimes  exultant  in  hope — were  full  of  one  great  thought, 


278         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIII. 

removal  from  that  familiar  city  to  an  unknown  wilderness. 
That  one  tliought'was  the  burden  of  prayer  in  their  holy  as- 
semblies, and  in  every  worshiping  household ;  for  they  ac- 
knowledged God  in  all  their  ways.  It  is  only  by  calling  up 
before  our  minds  such  details  as  these  that  we  can  see  the 
true  and  interior  meaning  of  the  story. 

Meanwhile  an  event,  supposed  to  be  of  much  significance, 
was  taking  place  in  England.  The  second,  or  Plymouth, 
Virginia  Company,  incorporated  to  colonize  "  the  north  parts 
of  Virginia,"  was  obtaining  from  the  king  a  new  charter  of 
incorporation,  reviving  it  under  another  corporate  name,  and 
giving  to  the  territory  over  which  its  authority  was  to  ex- 
tend a  name  which  had  been  recently  proposed  by  Captain 
John  Smith,  with  the  approval  of"  Charles,  Prince  of  Wales." 
Thenceforth  the  region  which  had  been  called  "  the  North 
Parts  of  Virginia,"  extending  from  the  forty-first  degree  of 
north  latitude  to  the  forty-fifth,  was  to  be  the  domain  of  "  the 
council  established  at  Plymouth  in  the  county  of  Devon,  for 
the  planting,  ruling,  ordering,  and  governing  of  New  En- 
gland in  America."  Wild  dreams  of  infinite  gold  and  silver 
— like  the  stream  of  treasure  which  for  a  century  had  been 
enriching  and  enfeebling  Spain — had  been,  partly  at  least, 
dispelled;  and  English  mariners  and  merchants  had  begun 
to  know  that  the  fisheries  on  that  northern  coast,  and  the 
furs  from  those  northern  forests,  might  become  to  English 
enterprise  a  mine  of  wealth.  Thomas  Weston  and  others 
of  the  Londoners,  without  whose  money  nothing  could  be 
done,  had  set  their  minds  upon  the  profits  of  the  fisheries  and 
of  the  fur-trade  with  the  Indians;  and,  at  Leyden  also,  it  be- 
gan to  be  said  by  some  of  the  leading  men  that,  inasmuch  as 
the  empty  patent  was  all  they  had  obtained,  or  were  likely 
to  obtain  from  the  Virginia  Company,  it  might  be  best  for 
them,  after  all,  to  settle  in  New  England  under  the  patronage 
of  the  "honorable  lords"  who  were  to  be  incorporated  as 
the  Plymouth  Council.  As  yet,  however,  the  question  wheth- 
er their  place  of  settlement  should  be  north  or  south  of  a 


A.D.  1619.]  STRUGGLES    AND    SACEIFICES.  279 

certain  degree  of  latitude  was  of  no  immediate  importance. 
The  business  on  hand  was  to  complete  their  preparation, 
so  that  they  might  make  their  voyage  at  the  favorable 
season. 

But  while  the  Pilgrims  at  Leyden  were  doing  their  part, 
their  agents  in  England  encountered  various  disheartening 
diflSculties.  The  first  disappointment  was  that  some  of  the 
friends  there,  who  had  been  expected  to  go  in  the  first  expe- 
dition, contributing  themselves  and  their  families  to  the  per- 
sonal strength  of  the  colony,  and  adding  their  means  to  the 
capital  of  the  joint-stock  company^  "  fell  off,  and  would  not 
go."  They  preferred  the  chances  of  persecution  in  their  na- 
tive country  to  the  perils  of  the  ocean  and  the  wilderness. 
The  faith  and  hope  which  glowed  at  Leyden  had  not  kindled 
in  them  the  enthusiasm  needful  to  so  great  an  enterprise. 

Another  disappointment  came  from  "  merchants  and  friends 
that  had  offered  to  adventure  their  money,"  but,  when  solicit- 
ed to  take  stock  in  the  company,  "  withdrew,  and  pretend- 
ed many  excuses."  All  know  how  it  is  when  men,  partially 
committed,  want  to  withdraw  from  an  undertaking  which 
they  fear  will  not  yield  the  dividends  it  seemed  at  the  first 
view  to  promise.  Some  excused  themselves  because  the  col- 
ony was  not  to  be  planted  in  Guiana.  Others  must  have 
security  that  it  should  be  nowhere  else  than  in  Virginia. 
Others,  again,  had  seen  and  heard  enough  of  disastrous  at- 
tempts at  colonization  under  the  Virginia  Company,  and 
would  do  nothing  without  a  pledge  that  the  colony  should 
not  be  planted  any  where  within  the  jurisdiction  of  that  un- 
lucky and  ill-managed  corporation.  When  these  things  were 
reported  at  Leyden,  there  were  serious  questionings.  To  men 
who  had  disposed  of  their  property  with  reference  to  an  im- 
mediate removal,  the  prospect  was  by  no  means  encouraging. 
It  was  doubtful  "  what  issue  these  things  would  come  to." 
Should  they  forego  the  advantages  which  their  patent  from 
the  Virginia  Company  gave  them?  It  does  not  appear  that 
there  was  any  formal  decision  ;  but  some  of  them,  surely,  had 


280        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.      [CH.  XIII. 

read  Captain  Jolin  Smith's  "  Description  of  New  England," 
and  "at  length  the  generality  was  swayed  to  the  opinion" 
that  "for  the  hope  of  present  profit  to  be  made  by  the  fish- 
ing in  that  country,"  it  was  best  for  them  to  plant  their  col- 
ony there,  and  to  negotiate  afterward  for  a  patent  from  the 
reincorporated  Plymouth  Council. 

There  was  a  much  greater  difficulty.  The  compact  to  be 
made  between  "  the  Adventurers"  and  "  the  Planters"  was  in 
those  Articles  of  Agreement  which  had  been  drawn  up  at 
Leyden,  and  to  which  Weston  had  given,  unequivocally,  his 
approval  and  consent.  But  after  the  Pilgrims  had  committed 
themselves  irretrievably,  and  when  they  were  in  the  midst 
of  their  preparation  for  the  voyage,  Weston  and  some  others 
of  the  Adventurers  insisted  on  a  change.  Their  pretense 
was  that  the  articles,  as  agreed  upon  at  Leyden,  were  not 
satisfactory  to  some  whose  co-ojoeration  was  important,  and 
to  whom  the  proposed  change  would  be  a  sufficient  induce- 
ment. But  the  sequel  of  the  story  seems  to  j)rove  that  Wes- 
ton, at  least,  was  one  of  those  traders  who  take  every  pos- 
sible advantage  in  a  bargain.  He  knew  that  the  Pilgrims 
were  in  his  power;  for  they  must  either  relinquish  in  despair 
the  undertaking  to  "which  they  had  committed  their  fortunes 
and  their  lives,  or  submit  to  whatever  conditions  the  Ad- 
venturers might  impose  upon  them.  The  two  agents  saw 
that  there  was  no  help,  and  reluctantly  submitted.  Cush- 
man,^  always  quick  to  discern  the  practicable  and  the  inevit- 
able, always  prompt  to  act  for  himself  or  for  others  when 
action  was  required,  took  the  responsibility.  He,  therefore, 
rather  than  Carver,  had  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  "  many  quer- 
imonies  and  complaints"  that  came  from  his  brethren  at  Ley- 
den. It  was  natural  for  them  to  complain  that  he  had  been 
"making  conditions  fitter  for  thieves  and  bond-slaves  than 
honest  men ;"  but  they,  too,  in  their  turn  submitted  to  the 

^  "  A  good  man,  and  of  special  abilities  in  his  kind,  yet  most  unfit  to  deal 
for  other  men  by  reason  of  his  singularity  and  too  great  inditferency  for  any 
conditions." — Robinson,  in  Bradford,  p.  48. 


A.D.  1620.]  STRUGGLES    AND    SACRIFICES.  281 

inevitable.  They  felt,  as  he  did,  that  it  was  better  to  proceed 
under  "  conditions  fit  for  thieves  and  bond-slaves,"  than  to 
abandon  their  enterprise  after  having  gone  so  far. 

The  Pilgrims  had  hoped  to  make  a  better  bargain  with 
their  friends  in  London ;  for,  after  all,  the  Adventurers  gen- 
erally were  their  friends,  whatever  might  be  true  of  Weston 
and  some  others,  whose  thoughts  were  of  codfish  and  beaver, 
and  who — under  a  show  of  sympathizing  zeal — cared  more 
for  large  profits  on  their  investment  than  for  the  Gospel  and 
the  kingdom  of  Christ.  Evidently,  the  influence  which  had 
demanded  and  obtained  those  new  conditions  was  that  of 
"the  merchants"  in  the  copartnership  of  Adventurers — the 
men  of  business,  with  whom  "  business  was  business,"  who  re- 
garded the  whole  affair  as  a  commercial  venture,  and  whose 
calculation  was  that  the  cjodliness  of  these  self-sacrificino- 
Pilgrims  would  yield  to  the  company  the  promise  of  this  life, 
Avhile  the  other  party  would  have  for  their  share  the  promise 
of  the  life  to  come.  Other  members  of  the  company — prob- 
ably a  numerical  majority^ — were  actuated  by  higher  motives, 
and  were  more  intent  on  planting  a  Christian  colony  than 
on  making  large  profits.  That  Thomas  Brewer  who  had  been 
Brewster's  partner  in  the  printing-ofiice  at  Leyden — and  who, 
"  being  a  man  of  good  estate,"  was  afterward  denounced  as 
"  the  general  patron  of  the  Kentish  Brownists,"  and  imprison- 
ed fourteen  years  for  his  eftbrts  in  that  cause' — was  one  of 
them.  Others  were  like-minded  with  him.  But  Weston,  by 
his  forwardness,  and  perhaps  by  his  greater  acquaintance 
with  commercial  affairs,  obtained  a  controlling  influence  ;  and 
the  business  of  the  company  seems  to  have  been  managed 
for  a  time  by  his  will.  Thus  it  was  that  the  Pilgrims  found 
themselves  under  the  necessity  of  submitting  to  conditions 
against  which  not  only  their  judgment  but  their  self-respect 
protested,  and  which  they  would  not  formally  accept. 

^  Waddington,  "  Hidden  Church,"  p.  226.  Brewer  was  one  of  Laud's  pris- 
oners, and  was  released  by  an  order  of  the  House  of  Commons,  November 
28,  1640. 


282        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.      [CH.  XIII. 

Briefly  stated,  the  plan  was  this.  There  were  two  distinct 
parties,  joint  proprietors  of  the  intended  colony.  One  party 
was  the  Adventurei's,  residing  in  London  and  its  vicinity, 
who  raised  the  capital  to  begin  and  supply  the  colony,  and 
were  to  manage  the  affairs  of  the  partnership  considered  as 
a  commercial  adventure.  They  were  "  about  seventy — some 
gentlemen,  some  merchants,  some  handicraftsmen  ;  some  ad- 
venturing great  sums,  some  small,  as  their  estates  and  affec- 
tions served."  They  were  not  a  legal  corporation,  but  were 
"  knit  together  by  a  voluntary  combination  in  a  society  with- 
out constraint  or  penalty,  aiming  to  do  good  and  to  plant  re- 
ligion." ^  The  other  party  was  the  Planters,  members  of  the 
Leyden  church,  with  a  few  more,  recruited  from  Essex  and 
some  other  parts  of  England.  According  to  the  Articles  of 
Agreement,  the  partnership  between  the  Adventurers  and 
Planters  was  a  joint-stock  company,  to  continue  seven  years 
unless  dissolved  earlier  by  general  consent.  The  number  of 
shares  was  unlimited,  at  ten  pounds  each.  Every  settler  in 
the  colony,  if  not  less  than  sixteen  years  of  age,  was  to  be 
considered  as  having  contributed  one  share ;  and,  if  self-pro- 
vided with  an  outfit  of  not  less  than  ten  pounds'  value,  two 
shares.  Every  child  over  ten  years  of  age  and  under  sixteen 
was  to  be  rated  at  half  a  share.  There  was  to  be  no  divi- 
dend of  profits  till  the  end  of  the  seven  years ;  and,  in  the 
mean  time,  every  person  in  the  colony  was  to  be  supported 
out  of  the  common  stock,  and  to  labor  under  direction,  with- 
out wages,  for  the  benefit  of  the  great  partnership.  At  the 
winding  up  of  the  concern,  all  the  capital,  with  the  accumu- 
lated profits  (including  the  colony  itself,  with  its  lands  and 
houses,  and  not  excepting  even  household  goods),  was  to  be 
divided  among  the  stockholders  in  proportion  to  their  shares. ^ 


^  Captain  John  Smith's  "General  History  of  Virginia"  (1624),  quoted 
in  Young,  p.  81,  82. 

^  Other  articles  in  the  contract  were,  that  "such  children  as  now  go,  and 
are  under  the  age  of  ten  years,  have  no  other  share  in  the  division  hut  only 
fifty  acres  of  unmanured  (uncleared)  land;"  and  that  "such  persons  as  die 


A.D.  1620.]  STRUGGLES    AND    SACRIFICES.  283 

In  other  words,  the  Pilgrims — men,  women,  and  little  ones — 
were  to  be  bond-servants  to  the  company  for  seven  years; 
in  all  that  time,  no  man  of  them  was  to  labor,  spend,  or  save 
for  himself  or  for  his  wife  and  children  ;  and,  at  the  end,  he 
was  to  receive  for  his  seven  years  of  labor  and  hardship  in 
the  wilderness,  and  of  peril  by  sea  and  land,  just  the  same 
share  of  the  total  product  with  the  man  who  had  contributed 
ten  pounds,  and  lived  quietly  all  the  while  in  London.  It 
was  a  hard  bargain,  but  they  submitted  to  the  harsh  condi- 
tions, because  there  was  no  other  way  in  which  they  could 
pursue  their  heroic  enterprise. 

before  the  seven  years  be  expired,  their  executors  to  have  their  part  or  share 
at  the  division,  proportionately  to  the  time  of  their  life  in  the  colony." 

In  drawing  up  the  Articles  of  Agreement,  the  Pilgrims  stipulated  that  the 
houses  and  the  land  under  cultivation — especially  gardens  and  home  lots — 
should  be,  at  the  end  of  the  seven  years'  partnership,  the  property  of  the 
planters ;  and  also  that  every  man — especially  such  as  had  families — should 
be  at  liberty,  two  days  in  a  week,  to  work  for  himself.  These  were  the  two 
stipulations  which  the  merchants,  against  the  protest  of  the  Pilgrims,  insist- 
ed on  striking  out  of  the  contract. 

T 


284       GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.  XlV. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


TER. THE    PILGRIMS    THE    REFORMERS    OF    SEPARATISM. 

Hardly  less  than  three  years  had  passed  since  the  resolu- 
tion was  taken  at  Leyden  to  attempt  the  founding  of  a  col- 
ony, and  the  first  expedition  was  not  yet  ready.  It  ought 
to  have  been  set  forth  early  in  the  summer,  so  that  there 
should  be  time  after  its  arrival  to  make  preparation  for  the 
winter.  But  so  many  were  the  hinderances  to  be  overcome 
by  the  agents  in  England,  that  the  longest  da}  of  summer 
(June  11=21,  1620)  had  come,  when  Cushman  wrote  from 
London,  "I  hope  we  shall  get  all  here  ready  in  fourteen 
days."  He  and  Weston  had  resolved  to  hire  a  ship,  and  had 
obtained  the  refusal  of  one  for  a  day  or  two — not  so  large  as 
would  be  desirable,  only  about  a  hundred  and  eighty  tons ; 
"  for  a  greater  one,"  said  he,  "  we  can  not  get,  except  it  be 
too  great ;  but  a  fine  ship  it  is."     It  was  the  Mayflower. 

At  the  same  time  a  much  smaller  vessel — the  Speedwell^  of 
sixty  tons — was  purchased  and  fitted  in  Holland.  She  was 
to  accompany  the  Mayflower  as  a  transport,  and  was  then  to 
remain  in  the  service  of  the  colony  as  a  fishing  and  coasting 
vessel.  She  was  first  to  be  employed  in  conveying  the  Ley- 
den part  of  the  expedition  to  Southampton,  in  England,  the 
port  whence  they  were  to  sail  for  America.  Once  more  the 
pioneer  Pilgrims  were  to  see  the  green  fields  of  their  native 
land. 

When  all  other  preparations  had  been  completed,  the 
church  again  devoted  a  day  to  humiliation  and  united  prayer 
(July  11  =:21),  the  crowning  preparation.  Their  pastor  "spent 
a  good  part  of  the  day  very  profitably  and  suitably  to  their 
present  occasion,"  preaching — or,  rather,  teaching — from  an 


A.D.1620.]  FKOM   LEYDEN   TO    SOUTHAMPTON.  285 

apposite  and  ever-remembered  text :  "  And  there  at  the  riv- 
er by  Ahava,  I  proclaimed  a  fast,  that  we  might  humble  our- 
selves before  our  God,  and  seek  of  him  a  right  way  for  us, 
and  for  our  children,  and  for  all  our  substance."  ^  Prayers 
were  offered  "with  great  fervency,  mixed  with  abundance 
of  tears."  The  fasting  was  followed  by  a  frugal  feast ;  "  they 
that  stayed  at  Leyden,"  says  one  who  was  there,  "  feasted 
us  that  were  to  go  at  our  pastor's  house  (being  large),  where 
we  refreshed  ourselves,  after  our  tears,  with  singing  of  psalms, 
making  joyful  melody  in  our  hearts  as  well  as  with  the  voice 
(there  being  many  of  the  congregation  very  expert  in  music), 
and  indeed  it  was  the  sweetest  melody  that  ever  mine  ears 
heard."  It  was  fit  that  the  evening  hours,  after  that  day  of 
prayer  and  tears,  be  cheered  with  sacred  song. 

The  day  had  come  when  they  must  depart.  But  those 
who  were  to  embark  were  accompanied  by  most  of  their 
brethren,  about  fourteen  miles,  to  Delft- Haven,  where  the 
Speedicell  lay  ready  to  receive  them.  "  So,"  floating  in  Dutch 
canal-boats,  "  they  left  the  goodly  and  pleasant  city  which 
had  been  their  resting-place  near  twelve  years."  As  the 
huge  pile  of  the  Peter' s-church  lessened  in  the  distance  and 
sank  below  the  horizon,  they  could  not  but  feel  how  dear 
Leyden  was  to  them ;  "  but  they  knew  they  were  pilgrims, 
and  looked  not  much  on  these  things."  Other  friends,  who 
could  not  accompany  them,  followed  at  a  later  hour,  and 
even  from  Amsterdam  some  came  to  see  their  embarkation 
and  to  say  farewell.  "  That  night  was  spent  with  little  sleep 
by  the  most,  but  with  friendly  entertainment  and  Christian 
discourse,  and  other  real  expressions  of  Christian  love,"  for 
"  there,"  says  Winslow,  "  they  feasted  us  again."  Those  men 
were  neither  sour  nor  grim ;  they  could  fast  or  feast  as  oc- 
casion might  require ;  and  on  that  occasion  the  joy  of  hope, 
and  of  a  grand  endeavor  auspiciously  begun,  was  mingled 
with  the  tender  sadness  of  their  parting. 

'  Ezra  viii,,  21 — Geneva  Version. 


286        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIV. 

"The  next  day,  the  wind  being  fair,  they  went  aboard," 
after  prayer  had  been  oifered  by  the  revered  pastor,  who 
was  hoping  soon  to  be  with  them  again  on  the  other  side  of 
the  ocean.  "Then,"  says  Winslow,  "they  accompanied  us 
to  the  ship,  but  were  not  able  to  speak  one  to  another  for 
the  abundance  of  sorrow  to  part."  A  few  moments,  while 
"  the  tide  which  waits  for  no  man  was  calling  them  away," 
the  voyagers  on  board  and  their  friends  on  the  quay  linger- 
ed in  silence.  Heads  are  reverently  uncovered ;  all  kneel 
for  worship ;  and  once  more  Robinson,  with  tremulous  voice, 
commends  the  departing  Pilgrims  to  Him  who  rules  the 
winds  and  the  sea.  The  little  vessel  swings  from  the  quay 
into  the  broad  channel,  spreads  her  sails  to  the  "  prosperous 
wind,"  and  gives  her  parting  salute.  "  We  gave  them,"  says 
Winslow,  "  a  volley  of  small  shot,  and  three  pieces  of  ord- 
nance; and  so,  lifting  up  our  hands  to  each  other,  and  our 
hearts  for  each  other  to  the  Lord  our  God,  we  departed,  and 
found  his  presence  with  us." 

Something  of  what  was  going  on  that  day  had  been  told 
among  the  people  of  Delft-Haven  ;  and  the  sailing  of  the 
Speechcell,  with  religious  exiles  from  England  to  begin  a 
colony  in  America,  drew  some  Dutch  strangers  to  the  river- 
side, whose  tears  attested  their  sympathy.  Years  afterward 
—  yet  long  before  the  importance  of  the  event  in  relation 
to  the  world's  history  was  known  or  suspected  in  Europe 
— the  embarkation  of  the  Pilgrims  was  freshly  remembered 
there. 

With  that  favoring  wind,  a  few  hours'  sailing  brought 
them  to  Southampton,  where  the  Mayflower  was  lying,  and 
where  the  rest  of  their  company  were  ready.  There  was  a 
joyful  w^elcome,  with  mutual  congratulations  and  friendly  en- 
tertainment, and  then  the  question  was  how  to  get  off  most 
expeditiously  on  their  long  voyage.  But  that  question  in- 
volved a  parley  with  their  agents  about  the  change  in  the 
Articles  of  Agreement.  Carver  referred  them  to  Cushman, 
whose  defense  was  "necessity:"  if  he  had  stood  out  against 


A.D.1620.]  AT   SOUTHAMPTON.  287 

Weston  and  the  others,  who  insisted  on  the  change, "  all  had 
been  daslied,  and  many  undone."  A  protracted  altercation 
between  the  Planters  and  the  Adventurers  would  hinder  the 
business ;  and  ah-eady  they  had  been  too  long  delayed,  as 
"  he  feared  they  would  find  to  their  cost."  But,  though  it 
was  admitted  that  Ciishman  liad  intended  to  do  what  he 
thought  was  best  to  be  done,  "these  things  gave  not  content 
at  present."  Weston  came  from  London  to  expedite  their 
sailing,  "and  to  have  the  conditions  confirmed."  But  they 
would  ratify  no  alteration  of  the  original  agreement,  and 
Weston  went  home  in  displeasure,  refusing  to  disburse  a  pen- 
ny for  them,  though  they  needed  nearly  a  hundred  pounds 
"to  clear  things  at  their  going  away."  They  were  not  to  be 
overcome  by  any  such  proceeding  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Thom- 
as Weston.  Instead  of  succumbing  at  his  intimation  that, 
till  they  should  consent  to  the  new  conditions,  "they  must 
look  to  stand  on  their  own  legs,"  they  immediately  "  stopped 
the  gap"  by  selling  ofi"  sixty  or  eighty  firkins  of  butter 
which  had  been  provided  for  them  by  their  agents,  but 
which  seemed,  in  that  strait,  not  quite  indispensable.  Hav- 
ing made  this  attempt  to  "  stand  on  their  own  legs,"  they 
addressed  a  resolute  but  courteous  letter  (Aug.  3  =  13)  to  "the 
merchants  and  adventurers,"  insisting  that  Ciishman  had  no 
power  from  them  to  modify  the  articles  deliberately  agreed 
upon  between  them  and  Weston  (whose  share  in  the  capi- 
tal was  greater,  they  said,  than  that  of  any  other  Adventur- 
er), persistently  refusing  to  ratify  those  new  conditions,  yet 
proposing  a  substitute  which  they  hoped  would  be  accept- 
able, because  they  had  been  assured  that  not  more  than  one 
fourth  of  the  stock  had  been  subscribed  by  the  men  for 
whose  sake  the  obnoxious  clauses  had  been  interpolated  into 
the  contract.  In  the  close  of  that  letter  they  said  :  "  We 
are  in  such  a  strait  at  present,  as  we  are  forced  to  sell  away 
sixty  pounds'  worth  of  our  provisions  to  clear  the  haven, 
and  withal  put  ourselves  upon  great  extremities  —  scarce 
having  any  butter,  no  oil,  not  a  sole  to  mend  a  shoe,  nor  ev- 


288       GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.XIV. 

ery  man  a  sword  to  his  side — wanting  many  muskets,  much 
armor,  etc.  And  yet  we  are  willing  to  expose  ourselves  to 
such  eminent  dangers  as  are  like  to  ensue,  and  trust  to  the 
good  providence  of  God,  rather  than  his  name  and  truth  be 
evil  spoken  of  for  us.  Thus  saluting  all  of  you  in  love,  and 
beseeching  the  Lord  to  give  a  blessing  to  our  endeavor,  and 
keep  all  our  hearts  in  the  bonds  of  peace  and  love,  we  take 
leave." 

Embarrassed  as  they  were  by  Weston's  angry  refusal  to 
help  them  "clear  things  at  their  going  away,"  so  that  God's 
name  and  truth  should  not  be  evil  spoken  of  on  their  ac- 
count, they  succeeded  in  clearing  things ;  and,  in  little  more 
than  a  week  after  their  arrival,  all  accounts  were  settled,  the 
freight  and  the  passengers  were  properly  divided  between 
the  two  vessels,  and  all  were  ready.  A  governor  and  two  or 
three  assistants  were  chosen  for  each  ship,  with  power  to  or- 
der the  people  on  the  voyage,  to  superintend  the  distribu- 
tion of  their  provisions,  and  in  general  to  take  care  of  the 
little  commonwealth — the  masters  of  the  vessels  consenting 
to  these  arrangements,  and  giving  to  them  the  sanction  of 
their  own  authority  over  their  passengers  at  sea. 

But  before  those  last  arrangements,  and  by  way  of  prepa- 
ration for  them,  the  Pilgrims — formally  assembled,  as  we  may 
presume,  under  the  presidency  of  their  ruling  elder,  now  with 
them — received  a  communication  from  their  pastor.  They 
knew  how  entirely  his  heart  went  with  them ;  and  that  the 
great  idea  which  they  were  attempting  to  realize  by  their 
migration  to  the  new  world  beyond  the  ocean  was  his  con- 
ception. His  official  counsel  on  that  occasion — the  pastoral 
letter,  "  which  had  good  acceptation  with  all,  and  after-fruit 
with  many" — is  a  material  part  of  the  history.  It  is  itself 
an  event  to  be  studied,  not  only  because  it  exhibits  the  re- 
ligious character  and  principles  of  the  writer,  but  also  be- 
cause it  illustrates  the  spirit  and  the  structure  of  the  church 
which,  having  been  so  carefully  trained  by  him,  was  then 
passing  over  to  plant  itself  in  America  : 


A.D.  1620.]  THE    PASTORAL   LETTER.  289 

"Loving  Christian  Friends, — I  do  heartily  and  in  the 
Lord  salute  you,  as  being  those  with  whom  I  am  present  in 
my  best  affections  and  most  earnest  longings  after  you, though 
I  be  constrained  for  a  while  to  be  bodily  absent  from  you.  I 
say  'constrained,'  God  knowing  how  willingly,  and  much 
rather  than  otherwise,  I  would  have  borne  my  part  with  you 
in  this  first  brunt,  were  I  not  by  strong  necessity  held  back 
for  the  present.  Make  account  of  me,  in  the  mean  while,  as 
of  a  man  divided  in  myself  with  great  pain,  and  as  (natural 
bonds  set  aside)  having  my  better  part  with  you.  And 
though  I  doubt  not  but  in  your  godly  wisdom  you  both  fore- 
see and  resolve  upon  that  which  concerneth  your  present 
state  and  condition,  both  severally  and  jointly,  yet  I  have 
thought  it  but  my  duty  to  add  some  further  spur  of  provo- 
cation to  them  that  run  well  already — if  not  because  you  need 
it,  yet  because  I  owe  it  in  love  and  duty. 

"And,  first,  as  we  are  daily  to  renew  our  repentance  with 
our  God,  especially  for  our  sins  known,  and  generally  for  our 
unknown  trespasses,  so  doth  the  Lord  call  us  in  a  singular 
manner,  upon  occasions  of  such  difiiculty  and  danger  as 
lieth  upon  you,  to  a  both  more  narrow  search  and  careful 
reformation  of  our  ways  in  his  sight;  lest  he,  calling  to  re- 
membrance our  sins  forgotten  by  us  or  unrepented  of,  take 
advantage  against  us,  and  in  judgment  leave  us  for  the 
same  to  be  swallowed  up  in  one  danger  or  other.  Whereas, 
on  the  contrary,  sin  being  taken  away  by  earnest  repent- 
ance, and  the  pardon  thereof  from  the  Lord  sealed  up  unto 
a  man's  conscience  by  his  Spirit,  great  shall  be  his  security 
and  peace  in  all  dangers,  sweet  his  comforts  in  all  distresses, 
with  happy  deliverance  from  all  evil,  whether  in  life  or  in 

death. 

"Now,  next  after  this  heavenly  peace  with  God  and  our 
own  consciences,  we  are  carefully  to  provide  for  peace  with 
all  men,  what  in  us  lieth,  especially  with  our  associates ;  and 
for  that  end  watchfulness  must  be  had,  that  we  neither  at  all 
in  ourselves  do  give  [offense]— no,  nor  easily  take  offense  be- 


290        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIV. 

ing  given  by  others.  Woe  be  unto  the  world  for  offenses ; 
for  though  it  be  necessary  (considering  the  malice  of  Satan 
and  man's  corruption)  that  offenses  come,  yet  woe  unto  the 
man,  or  woman  either,  by  whom  the  offense  cometh,  saith 
Christ  (Matt,  xviii.,  7).  And  if  offenses  in  the  unseasonable 
use  of  things  in  themselves  indifferent  be  more  to  be  feared 
than  death  itself,  as  the  apostle  teacheth  (1  Cor.  ix.,  15), 
how  much  more  in  things  simply  evil,  in  which  neither  hon- 
or of  God  nor  love  of  man  is  thought  worthy  to  be  regarded. 
Neither  yet  is  it  sufficient  that  we  keep  ourselves,  by  the 
grace  of  God,  from  giving  offense,  excej^t  withal  we  be  armed 
against  the  taking  of  them  when  they  be  given  by  others.  For 
how  unperfect  and  lame  is  the  work  of  grace  in  that  person  who 
wants  charity  to  cover  a  multitude  of  offenses,  as  the  Scriptures 
speak.  Neither  are  you  to  be  exhorted  to  this  grace  only  upon 
the  common  grounds  of  Christianity,  which  are,  that  persons 
ready  to  take  offense  either  want  charity  to  cover  offenses,  or 
wisdom  duly  to  weigh  human  frailties;  or,  lastly,  are  gross 
though  close  hypocrites,  as  Christ  our  Lord  teacheth  (Matt. 
vii.,1-5) ;  as,  indeed,  in  my  own  experience,  few  or  none  have 
been  found  which  sooner  give  offense  than  such  as  easily 
take  it ;  neither  have  they  ever  proved  sound  and  profitable 
members  in  societies,  which  have  nourished  this  touchy  hu- 
mor. But,  besides  these,  there  are  divers  motives  provoking 
you,  above  others,  to  great  care  and  conscience  this  way. 
As,  first,  you  are  many  of  you  strangers,  as  to  the  persons, 
so  to  the  infirmities  one  of  another,  and  so  stand  in  need  of 
more  watchfulness  this  way,  lest,  when  such  things  fall  out 
in  men  and  women  as  you  suspected  not,  you  be  inordinately 
affected  with  them — which  doth  require  at  your  hands  much 
wisdom  and  charity  for  the  covering  and  preventing  of  in- 
cident offenses  that  way.  And,  lastly,  your  intended  course 
of  civil  community  will  minister  continual  occasion  of  of- 
fense, and  will  be  as  fuel  for  that  fire,  except  you  diligently 
quench  it  with  brotherly  forbearance. 

"  And  if  taking  of  offense  causelessly  or  easily  at  men's 


A.D.  1620.]  THE    PASTORAL   LETTER.  291 

doings  be  so  carefully  to  be  avoided,  bow  much  more  heed 
is  to  be  taken  that  we  take  not  offense  at  God  himself;  wliich 
yet  we  certainly  do  so  oft  as  we  do  murmur  at  his  provi- 
dence in  our  crosses,  or  bear  impatiently  such  afflictions  as 
wherewith  he  pleaseth  to  visit  us.  Store  up,  therefore,  pa- 
tience against  the  evil  day,  without  which  we  take  offense  at 
the  Lord  himself  in  his  holy  and  just  works. 

"  A  fourth  thing  there  is  carefully  to  be  provided  for,  to 
wit :  that  with  your  common  employments  you  join  common 
affections,  truly  bent  upon  the  general  good ;  avoiding,  as  a 
plague  of  your  both  common  and  special  comfort,  all  retired- 
ness  of  mind  for  proper  advantage,  and  all  singularly  affected 
any  manner  of  way.  Let  every  man  repress  in  himself,  and 
the  whole  body  in  each  person,  as  so  many  rebels  against 
the  common  good,  all  private  respects  of  men's  selves  not 
sorting  with  the  general  conveniency.^  And  as  men  are 
careful  not  to  have  a  new  house  shaken  with  any  violence 
before  it  be  well  settled  and  the  parts  firmly  knit,  so  be  you, 
I  beseech  you,  brethren,  much  more  careful  that  the  house 
of  God,  which  you  are,  and  are  to  be,  be  not  shaken  with  un- 
necessary novelties  or  other  oppositions,  at  the  first  settling 
thereof. 

"  Lastly,  whereas  you  are  to  become  a  body  politic,  using 


'  Robinson,  in  this  passage,  refers  to  the  Pilgrims'  "  intended  course  of  civil 
community."  Their  labor  (the  whole  of  it,  as  Weston  and  others  of  the  Ad- 
venturers contended— four  days  out  of  six,  as  they  willingly  conceded)  was 
to  go  into  the  "common  stock"  for  the  founding  of  the  colony.  He  knew 
what  temptations  were  incidental  to  such  a  plan  at  the  best,  and  that  the 
temptations  would  be  increased  by  the  conflict  of  opinion  which  had  arisen 
between  the  Adventurers  and  the  Planters  about  those  "common  employ- 
ments. "  He  therefore  counsels  them  to  enter  heartily  into  the  spirit  of  their 
enterprise  as  involving  self-denial  for  the  general  good,  to  avoid  the  with- 
drawing of  their  minds  from  the  common  interest  toward  any  advantage 
proper  to  one's  self  and  not  common  to  all,  and  every  consideration  which 
"in  any  manner  of  way  "  affects  the  single  and  separate  interest  of  the  indi- 
vidual, or  regards  it  as  adverse  to  the  interest  of  the  colony  which  they  are 
founding. 


292        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIV. 

among  yourselves  civil  government,  and  are  not  furnished 
with  any  persons  of  special  eminency  above  the  rest  to  be 
chosen  by  you  into  office  of  government,  let  your  wisdom 
and  godliness  appear  not  only  in  choosing  such  persons  as  do 
entirely  love  and  will  diligently  promote  the  common  good, 
but  also  in  yielding  unto  them  all  due  honor  and  obedience 
in  their  lawful  administrations ;  not  beholding  in  them  the 
ordinariness  of  their  persons,  but  God's  ordinance  for  your 
good ;  nor  being  like  the  foolish  multitude,  who  honor  more 
the  gay  coat  than  either  the  virtuous  mind  of  the  man  or  [the] 
glorious  ordinance  of  the  Lord.  But  you  know  better  things, 
and  that  the  image  of  the  Lord's  power  and  authority,  which 
the  magistrate  beareth,  is  honorable  in  how  mean  persons  so- 
ever. And  this  duty  you  may  both  the  more  willingly  and 
ought  the  more  conscionably  to  perform,  because  you  are,  at 
least  for  the  present,  to  have  only  them  for  your  ordinary 
governors  which  yourselves  shall  make  choice  of  for  that 
work. 

"  Sundry  other  things  of  importance  I  could  put  you  in 
mind  of,  and  of  those  before  mentioned  in  more  words.  But 
I  will  not  so  far  wrong  your  godly  minds  as  to  think  you 
heedless  of  these  things ;  there  being  also  divers  among  you 
so  well  able  to  admonish  both  themselves  and  others  of  what 
concerneth  them.  These  few  things,  therefore,  and  the  same 
in  few  words,  I  do  earnestly  commend  unto  your  care  and 
conscience,  joining  therewith  my  daily,  incessant  prayers  unto 
the  Lord,  that  He  who  hath  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth, 
the  sea  and  all  rivers  of  waters,  and  whose  providence  is 
over  all  his  works,  especially  over  all  his  dear  children  for 
good,  would  so  guide  and  guard  you  in  your  ways — as  in- 
wardly by  his  Spirit,  so  outwardly  by  the  hand  of  his  power 
— as  that  both  you  and  we  also,  for  and  with  you,  may  have 
after-matter  of  praising  his  name  all  the  days  of  your  and 
our  lives.  Fare  you  well  in  Him  in  whom  you  trust,  and 
in  whom  I  rest, — an  unfeigned  well-wilier  of  your  happy 
success  in  this  hopeful  voyage,  John  Robinson." 


A.D.  1620.]  AT    SOUTHAMPTON.  293 

The  official  communication  must  have  been  transmitted 
to  Brewster  as  ruling  elder,  and  by  him  communicated  to 
the  Pilgrim  company.  A  private  letter  from  Robinson  to 
Carver  was  sent,  apparently,  by  the  same  conveyance.  That 
letter  of  personal  affection  was  preserved  for  posterity  to 
read  —  probably  because  "it  was  the  last  letter  Mr.  Carver 
lived  to  see  from"  his  pastor.  It  is  characteristic  not 
only  of  the  writer  but  of  the  enterprise  (July  27=Aug.  6). 
"  I  have  a  true  feeling  of  your  perplexity  of  mind  and  toil 
of  body;  but  I  hope  that  you,  who  have  always  been  able 
so  plentifully  to  administer  comfort  to  others  in  their 
trials,  are  so  w^ell  furnished  for  yourself  as  that  far  greater 
difficulties  than  you  have  yet  undergone  (though  I  conceive 
them  to  have  been  great  enough)  can  not  oppress  you, 
though  they  press  you,  as  the  apostle  speaks.  The  spirit  of 
a  man  (sustained  by  the  Spirit  of  God)  will  sustain  his  in- 
firmity ;  so,  I  doubt  not,  will  yours.  And  the  better,  much, 
when  you  shall  enjoy  the  presence  and  help  of  so  many  god- 
ly and  wise  brethren  for  the  bearing  of  part  of  your  burden, 
who  also  will  not  admit  into  their  hearts  the  least  thought 
of  suspicion  of  any  the  least  negligence,  at  least  presumption, 
to  have  been  in  you,  whatsoever  they  think  in  others.  Now 
what  shall  I  say  or  write  unto  you  and  your  good  wife  my 
loving  sister?  Even  only  this:  I  desire,  and  always  shall, 
unto  you  from  the  Lord  as  unto  my  own  soul;  and  assure 
yourself  that  my  heart  is  w^th  you,  and  that  I  will  not  fore- 
slow  my  bodily  coming  at  the  first  opportunity.  I  have 
written  a  large  letter  to  the  whole,  and  am  sorry  I  shall  not 
rather  speak  than  write  to  them ;  and  the  more,  considering 
the  want  of  a  preacher,  which  I  shall  also  make  some  spur  to 
my  hastening  after  you.  I  do  ever  commend  my  best  affec- 
tion unto  you,  which  if  I  thought  you  made  any  doubt  of,  I 
would  express  in  more — and  the  same  more  ample  and  full — 
words.  And  the  Lord  in  whom  you  trust,  and  whom  you  serve 
ever  in  this  business  and  journey,  guide  you  with  his  hand, 
protect  you  with  his  wing,  and  show  you  and  us  his  savation 


294        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIV. 

in  the  end,  and  bring  us  in  the  mean  while  together  in  the  place 
desired,  if  such  be  his  good  will,  for  Christ's  sake.     Amen." 

These  letters  from  the  Pilgrim  pastor  to  the  voyagers  are 
valuable  to  a  discerning  reader  for  their  unconscious  exhibi- 
tion of  the  spirit  and  inner  life  of  the  church  which  was  seek- 
ing a  home  for  itself  in  the  American  wilderness.  For  more 
than  fourteen  years  —  at  Scrooby,  at  Amsterdam,  and  at 
Leyden  —  the  church  had  been  taught  and  trained  by  the 
writer  of  those  letters.  Through  all  those  years,  in  the  con- 
stant study  of  the  Scriptures,  and  under  the  discipline  of 
duty  and  of  suffering,  he  had  been  learning,  and  the  church 
had  been  learning  with  him.  At  first,  the  Separatists  who 
held  their  meetings  in  the  manor-house  of  Scrooby  may  have 
been  like  other  Separatists  in  the  strictness  of  their  close 
communion.  Attempting  to  realize  their  fundamental  idea 
that  a  church  of  Christ  can  exist  only  as  a  fellowship  of 
kindred  souls  voluntarily  sejjarating  themselves  from  the 
world  that  lieth  in  wickedness,  they  first  found  that  the  so- 
called  Church  of  England  was  not  constituted  in  that  way, 
but  was  designed  to  comprehend  all  subjects  of  the  English 
crown — men  of  Belial  as  Avell  as  saints  of  God — and  was 
therefore  not  at  all  a  church  of  Christ.  Next  they  found 
that  the  worship  in  the  parish  assemblies  constituted  by  law 
was  not  only  at  variance  with  the  rules  and  principles  of  the 
New  Testament,  but  defiled  by  superstitious  ceremonies  and 
various  compromises  with  idolatry.  Therefore  they  could 
not  content  themselves  with  merely  denouncing  the  theory 
of  what  was  called  the  Church  of  England.  To  them  that 
entire  institution  was  Babylon ;  and  they  made  haste  to 
come  out  of  it.  They  testified  against  it  by  practicing,  "as 
the  Lord's  free  people,"  the  "  positive  part  of  church  refor- 
mation." They  would  have  no  communion  with  the  national 
worship,  with  sacraments  in  which  the  unholy  and  profane 
were  not  only  permitted  but  by  law  required  to  be  partak- 
ers ;  nor  with  prayers  which,  besides  being  prescribed  and 
imposed,  were  superstitious  in   matter  and  ceremony,  and 


A.D.  1609-20,]      THE    KEFORMEES    OF    SEPARATISM.  295 

were  at  the  best  only  a  substitute  for  prayer,  as  the  homilies 
were  a  substitute  for  preaching.  Many  of  the  early  Sepa- 
ratists were  so  zealous  against  idolatry  that  they  would  have 
no  religious  intercourse  with  any  who  recognized  the  parish 
assemblies  as  churches  of  Christ,  or  worshiped  in  the  estab- 
lished forms.  Some  advanced  Puritans  absented  themselves 
from  the  liturgical  part  of  the  service,  but  came  to  church  in 
time  for  the  sermon,  and  for  the  "  free "  or  "  conceived " 
prayer  which  the  minister,  if  a  Puritan,  introduced  into  the 
order  of  public  worship,  after  the  reading  from  the  Prayer- 
book  and  before  the  sermon.  Extreme  Separatists  held  no 
communion  with  mere  Puritans,  however  advanced.  Their 
judgment  was  that  the  National  Church  was  not  a  Christian 
but  an  antichristian  institution,  and  that  all  who  worshiped 
in  its  assemblies,  under  whatever  protest,  were  unfit  for 
Christian  communion.  Such  was  the  position  held,  at  first, 
by  Robinson,  and  by  the  church  over  which  he  presided. 

Their  removal  from  Amsterdam,  for  the  purpose  of  avoid- 
ing the  contentions  among  the  Separatists  there,  implied  no 
change  of  opinion  on  the  question  of  religious  intercourse 
with  adherents  of  the  Church  of  England ;  but  it  may  be 
regarded  as  the  first  step  toward  broader  views  and  a  more 
open  communion.  In  their  church  life  at  Leyden — so  quiet, 
so  full  of  mutual  helpfulness,  so  blessed  with  advantages  for 
edification  —  there  was  spiritual  growth.  By  their  friendly 
intercourse  with  Christian  brethren  of  another  race  and  lan- 
guage, as  well  as  by  the  intercourse  of  their  pastor  with  the 
Reformed  ministers  of  the  city  and  the  theologians  and  other 
learned  men  of  the  university,  their  minds  were  enlarged,  and 
their  religious  sympathies  were  (in  the  true  sense)  liberal- 
ized. In  the  early  years  of  their  sojourn  at  Leyden,  we  find 
Robinson  maintaining  against  a  fellow- exile  (1612),  the 
learned  and  honored  Puritan,  Dr.  Ames,^  that  there  ought  to 

'  William  Ames  (often  called,  in  the  Latin  form,  Amesius),  one  of  the 
most  learned  of  the  Puritan  di^-ines,  avoided  the  penalties  of  nonconformity 


296        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XIV. 

be  no  visible  communion — not  even  in  a  private  meeting  for 
prayer — between  members  of  a  true  church  and  those  who, 
though  recognized  as  personally  holy,  are  members  only  of  a 
false  church.  But  though  he  defended  his  position  with 
much  logical  skill,  he,  not  long  afterward,  receded  from  it 
(1614),  and  acknowledged  that  he  had  learned  a  new  lesson. 
He  had  learned  to  make  a  distinction  between  "  personal " 
religious  actions — "such  as  arise  from,  and  are  performed 
immediately  by,  the  personal  faith  and  other  graces  of  God 
in  the  hearts  of  holy  men" — and  "church  actions" — such  as 
sacraments  and  censures,  which  imply  "  a  church  state  and 
order."  Referring  to  what  he  had  written  in  his  correspond- 
ence with  Ames,  he  says  of  this  distinction,  "It  would  have 
cleared  the  question  to  my  conscience;"  and  it  was  that 
"  with  Avhich  I  did  wholly  satisfy  myself  in  this  matter,  when 
God  gave  me  once  to  observe  it."  His  treatise,  "  Of  Relig- 
ious Communion,  Private  and  Public,"  is  founded  on  that 
distinction.  He  says:  "The  thing  I  aim  at  in  this  whole  dis- 
course is,  that  we  who  profess  a  separation  from  the  English 
national,  provincial,  diocesan,  and  parochial  church  and 
churches,  in  the  whole  formal  state  and  order  thereof,  may, 

by  escaping  from  Archbishop  Bancroft  and  the  High  Commission  into  Hol- 
land in  1609,  and  found  employment  as  minister  of  an  English  congregation 
at  the  Hague.  Dismissed  from  that  place  in  1612,  at  the  instigation  of 
Archbishop  Abbott,  and  by  the  intervention  of  the  F.nglish  embassador — and 
prevented,  by  the  same  influence,  from  being  called  to  one  of  the  theological 
professorships  in  Leyden — he  was  afterward,  for  twelve  years,  professor  of 
theology  in  the  University  of  Franeker.  Thence,  in  failing  health,  he  re- 
moved to  Rotterdam,  where  he  was  associated  with  Hugh  Peters  in  the  care 
of  an  Independent  church.  In  his  character  as  professor  in  a  Dutch  uni- 
versity, he  was  a  member  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and  had  a  conspicuous  part 
in  the  Arminian  controversy.  He  was  highly  esteemed  by  Puritans  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic ;  and,  at  the  time  of  his  decease,  in  1633,  he  was  ex- 
pecting to  remove  to  New  England.  Two  of  his  works,  "Cases  of  Con- 
science," and  "Medulla  Theologiiie,"  were  regarded  as  classical;  and  the 
latter,  when  Yale  College  was  instituted,  nearly  seventy  years  after  his  death, 
was  made  a  text-book  of  theology  in  the  "  collegiate  school." 


A.D.  1614-20.]       THE    EEFORMERS    OF    SEPARATISM.  29V 

iiotwitlistaiiding,  lawfully  communicate  in  private  prayer 
and  other  tlie  like  holy  exercises  (not  performed  in  their 
church  communion,  nor  by  their  church  power  and  ministry) 
with  the  godly  among  them,  though  remaining,  of  infirm- 
ity, members  of  the  same  church  or  churches — except  some 
other  extraordinary  bar  come  in  the  way  between  them  and 
us."^  The  church  in  Leyden,  accepting  this  distinction,  took 
a  position  which  the  church  in  Amsterdam,  then  under  Ains- 
worth's  care,  did  not  take.  Between  the  two  churches  there 
was,  thenceforth,  without  any  breach  of  fraternity,  one  marked 
difference.  At  Amsterdam,  the  Separatist  and  the  Puritan 
could,  not  even  pray  together;  but  at  Leyden,  fellow-exiles, 
whether  renouncing  the  Church  of  England  or  adhering  to 
it,  could  unite  in  all  those  acts  of  worship  or  of  mutual  edifi- 
cation in  which  there  is  no  necessary  reference  to  a  church 
or  its  ministry  —  "  of  which  sort  are  private  prayer,  thanks- 
giving, and  singing  of  psalms,  profession  of  faith  and  con- 
fession of  sins,  reading  or  opening  the  Scriptures,  and  hearing 
them  so  read  or  opened,  in  the  family  or  elsewhere,  without 
any  church  power  or  ministry  coming  between." 

Another  extreme  conclusion  on  the  part  of  the  early  Sepa- 
ratists was  that  not  only  the  idolatrous  images  and  pictures 
in  the  edifices  built  for  Roman  Catholic  Avorship,  but  the 
edifices  themselves,  were  monuments  and  implements  of  idol- 
atry, and  as  such  ought  to  be  destroyed.  Robinson's  own 
language  was:  "As  the  temples,  altars,  and  high  places  for 
those  Baalims  and  other  idols,  were  by  godly  kings  to  be 
rased  down  and  taken  away  (Deut.  xii.,  1-3  ;  2  Kings  x.,  25 
-28 ;  xviii.,  1,  3,  4),  and  no  way  to  be  employed  to  the  true 
worship  of  God ;  so  are  the  temples,  with  their  appurtenan- 
ces, built  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  Peter,  Paul  and  the  rest — 
though  true  saints,  yet  the  Papists'  false  gods  and  very 
Baalims  —  to  be  demolished  and  overthrown  by  the  same 
lawful  authority,  and  in  the  mean  while  to  be  avoided  as  exe- 

'  Robinson,  Works,  Hi.,  102,  lO.').      ■ 

u 


298        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XIV. 

crable  things  by  them  which  have  none  authority  to  deface 
or  demolish  them."  Such  was  the  Pilgrim  pastor's  teaching, 
on  that  point,  in  the  early  years  (1610)  of  the  sojourn  at  Ley- 
den.  A  few  years  later  there  was  a  controversy  between 
Ains worth  and  John  Paget  (1618),  minister  of  an  English 
Puritan  congregation  at  Amsterdam.  Paget's  church  had 
for  its  place  of  worship  a  "temple,"  described  by  Ainsworth 
as  "  the  Nuns'  chapel,  built  for  the  worship  of  their  breaden 
god  and  other  idols ;"  and  that  was  one  of  many  reasons 
why  the  Separatists  could  not  commune  with  it.  In  rejjly 
to  this,  Paget  said,  among  other  things :  "  Mr.  Robinson, 
though  he  have  written  in  such  high  words  against  these 
'  temples,'  .  .  .  yet  hath  he,  for  this  long  time,  tolerated  Mr. 
Brewster  to  hear  the  Word  of  God  in  such  places ;  .  .  .  and 
now  of  late,  this  last  month, .  . .  begins  openly,  in  the  midst  of 
his  congregation,  to  plead  for  the  lawful  use  of  these  '  tem- 
ples.' "  ^  Paget's  testimony  is  confirmed  by  Robinson  him- 
self. In  his  "Apology,"  he  says  that  if  these  "temples"  are 
not  "monuments  and  snares  of  idolatry,"  there  is  no  reason 
why  they  should  be  destroyed;  and  he  marks  the  distinction 
between  the  temple  regarded  as  a  holy  place  by  the  super- 
stitious multitude,  and  the  temple  regarded  simply  as  a  place 
"in  which  the  church  may  well  and  conveniently  assemble 
together."  He  adds:  "The  former  use  I  deem  altogether  un- 
lawful; the  latter  not  so,  but  lawful,  provided  always  that 
the  opinion  of  holiness  be  removed,  and  withal  such  blemishes 

^  Hanbury,  i.,  329,  333.  Paget's  argument,  on  this  point,  was  entirely  ar- 
r/zimentum  ad  honmiem.  First,  Ainsworth 's  church,  at  the  time  of  their  Avith- 
drawal  from  Johnson's,  did  not  refuse  to  occupy  what  had  been  a  Jewish 
synagogue.  Secondly,  The  same  church,  after  Johnson's  company  had  been 
dispossessed,  was  content  to  occupy  that  place.  Thirdly,  The  members  of 
the  same  church  received  alms  from  the  Dutch  in  a  place  which  they  re- 
garded as  an  idol  temple.  Fourthly,  Separatists  were  not  of  one  mind  nor 
constant  to  one  opinion  on  the  question.  In  proof  of  this  last  point,  Kobin- 
son's  change  of  opinion  and  practice  is  mentioned ;  and  also  the  fact  that 
some  of  Ainsworth  s  cliurch  did  "sometimes  hear  the  Dutch  ministers  even 
in  those  '  temples.'  " 


A.D.  1614-20,]        THE    REFORMEES   OF    SEPARATISM.  299 

of  superstition  as  wherewithal  things  lawful  in  themselves 
are  usually  stained." 

These  two  points  being  gained  in  the  direction  of  an  en- 
larged intercourse  with  Christians  still  adhering  to  national 
churches,  another  step  was  taken  in  natural  sequence.  If 
members  of  a  true  church  might  have  private  communion 
with  Christian  souls  not  yet  separated  from  the  false  church, 
and  might  unite  with  them  in  all  religious  actions  not  re- 
quiring nor  implying  the  intervention  of  an  organized  church 
or  an  official  ministry;  and  if  Separatists,  devoutly  abhorring 
all  the  "monuments  and  snares  of  idolatry,"  might  neverthe- 
less regard  a  once  idolatrous  temple  as  nothing  else  than  a 
place  convenient  for  an  assembly  of  Christian  w^orshii^ers — 
especially  when  the  majority  of  those  assembling  in  it  had 
ceased  to  honor  it  with  superstitious  veneration — still  more 
when  the  structure,  though  built  "for  the  worship  of  the 
breaden  god,"  was  really  fit  for  the  use  of  a  parish  assembly, 
instead  of  being  a  cathedral  or  minster  "  which  for  its  mag- 
nificent building  and  superstitious  form  agrees  far  better  to 
the  Romish  religion,  pompous  and  idolatrous  as  it  is,  than 
to  the  reformed  and  apostolical  simplicity" — then  surely  it 
might  be  lawful  for  a  Separatist  to  hear  a  "  lecture,"  or  ser- 
mon, from  an  evangelical  preacher  in  a  parish  church;  nor 
would  he,  in  so  doing,  lessen  the  force  of  his  protest  against 
superstition  and  ecclesiastical  despotism.  Robinson  saw  this 
clearly  in  his  later  years,  and  asserted  it  against  the  rigid 
Separatists  of  Amsterdam.  His  tract  on  "  the  Lawfulness 
of  Hearing  the  Ministers  in  the  Church  of  England,"  though 
not  written  till  near  the  end  of  his  life,  nor  published  till 
after  his  death,  expresses  no  sudden  or  recent  conclusion. 
The  principle  on  which  the  author  stands  is  that,  as  the 
Athenians  who  heard  Paul  on  Mars  Hill  did  not  by  simply 
hearing  him  acknowledge  his  apostleship — as  a  stray  hearer 
coming  into  any  Christian  assembly,  and  listening  to  a  ser- 
mon, does  not  thereby  recognize  that  assembly  as  a  true 
church  of  Christ — so  those  who  resort  to  the  parish  temple 


300         GEXESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIV. 

simply  as  hearers,  knowing  that  the  minister  preaches  the 
Gospel  of  Christ,  do  not  thereby  have  any  communion  with 
what  is  antichristian  in  the  constitution  and  hierarchy,  or 
superstitious  in  the  ritual  of  the  Church  of  England.  His 
"  learned,  polished,  and  modest  spirit "  grew  saintlier  as  he 
drew  near  to  heaven ;  and  in  none  of  his  writings  does  it 
manifest  itself  more  attractively  than  in  this.  To  what 
breadth  of  Christian  brotherly  kindness  he  had  attained, 
without  compromising  the  great  principle  for  which  God 
had  made  him  a  witness,  the  closing  sentences  tell  us. 

"To  conclude:  For  myself,  thus  I  believe  with  my  heart 
before  God,  and  profess  with  my  tongue,  and  have  [professed] 
before  the  world  : 

"That  I  have  one  and  the  same  faith, hope,  spirit, baptism, 
and  Lord  which  I  had  in  the  Church  of  England,  and  none 
other ; 

"That  I  esteem  so  many  in  that  churcli,  of  what  state  or 
order  soever,  as  are  truly  partakers  of  that  faith  (as  I  account 
many  thousands  to  be),  for  my  Christian  brethren,  and  my- 
self a  fellow-member  with  them  of  that  one  mystical  body  of 
Christ  scattered  far  and  wide  throughout  the  world ; 

"That  I  have  always,  in  spirit  and  affection,  all  Christian 
fellowship  and  communion  with  them,  and  am  most  ready — 
in  all  outward  acts  and  exercises  of  religion,  lawful  and  law- 
fully done — to  express  the  same  ; 

"That  I  am  persuaded  the  hearing  of  tlie  Word  of  God 
there  preached — in  the  manner  and  upon  the  grounds  former- 
ly mentioned — is  both  lawful  and  (upon  occasion)  necessary 
for  me  and  all  true  Christians  withdrawing  from  that  hie- 
rarchical order  and  church  government  and  ministry,  and 
[from  the]  appurtenances  thereof,  and  uniting  in  the  order 
and  ordinances  instituted  by  Christ,  the  only  King  and  Lord 
of  his  church,  and  by  all  his  disciples  to  be  observed; 

"  And,  lastly,  That  I  can  not  communicate  with  or  submit 
unto  the  said  church-order  and  ordinances  there  established, 
either  in  state  or  act,  without  being:  condemned  of  mine  own 


A.D.  1614-20.]        THE    KEFOKMERS    OF    SEPARATISM.  301 

lieart,  and  therein  provoking  God,  who  is  greater  than  my 
heart,  to  condemn  me  much  more. 

"  And  for  my  failings  (which  may  easily  be  too  many,  one 
way  or  another)  of  ignorance  herein,  and  so  for  all  my  other 
sins,  I  most  humbly  crave  pardon,  first  and  most  at  the  hands 
of  God — and  so  [at  the  hands]  of  all  men  whom  I  therein  of- 
fend, or  have  ofi*ended  any  manner  of  way — even  as  they  de- 
sire and  look  that  God  should  pardon  their  offenses."^ 

It  can  not  be  doubted  that,  hi  all  this  progress,  the  Pilgrim 
Church  as  a  whole,  and  the  individual  members  of  it,  in  pro- 
portion to  their  intelligence  and  the  breadth  of  their  spiritual 
sympathy,  kept  pace  with  the  pastor  whom  they  so  loved 
and  honored.  As  his  views  broadened,  so  did  theirs.  As  lie, 
in  the  growth  of  his  Christian  manliness,  broke  the  shackles 
of  a  narrow  and  self-deluding  Separatism,  they  too  were  by 
his  teachings  relieved  and  brought  into  freedom.  We  find 
him,  in  one  instance,  referring  sadly  to  "  the  woeful  experience 
of  many  years  "  which  he  had  had  with  unreasonable  and  un- 
teachable  men  among  Separatists;  "though,"  he  adds,  "not 
much,  I  thank  the  Lord,  among  them  unto  whom  I  have  min- 
istered." ^ 

Edward  Winslow  was  under  Robinson's  ministry  for  three 
years  before  the  embarkation  at  Delft-Haven.  He  knew  only 
by  report  that  the  pastor  had  been  formerly  "  more  rigid  in 
his  course  and  way  ;"  but  for  those  three  years  his  testimony 
concerning  what  Robinson  daily  taught,  or  concerning  the 
Catholic  spirit  and  practice  of  that  Pilgrim  church,  is  as  di- 
rect as  it  is  exjjlicit :  "Never  people  upon  earth  lived  more 
lovingly,  and  parted  more  sweetly  than  we,  the  church  at 
Leyden,  did."  "That  church,"  he  says,  "  made  no  schism  or 
separation  from  the  Reformed  churches,  but  held  communion 
with  them  occasionally.  .  .  .  For  the  truth  is,  the  Dutch  and 
French  churches,  either  of  them  being  a  people  distinct  from 
the  world  and  gathered  into  a  holy  communion,  and  not  na- 

'  Kobinson,  Works,  iii.,  337,  378.  =  Works,  iii.,  355. 


302         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [cil.  XIV. 

tioiia.  churches,  .  .  .  the  difference  is  so  small  (if  moderately 
pondered)  between  them  and  us,  as  we  dare  not  for  the  world 
deny  communion  with  them."  So  far,  indeed,  had  the  Pilgrim 
pastor  and  his  church  advanced  toward  what  in  earlier  years 
they  would  have  deemed  a  dangerous  laxity,  that  on  one  oc- 
casion they  were  ready,  as  it  might  seem,  "  to  hold  commun- 
ion with"  the  theoretically  national  Church  of  Scotland.^ 

The  same  witness  reports  "the  wholesome  counsel"  which 
the  Pilgrims  received  from  their  pastor  "  at  their  departure 
from  him  to  begin  the  great  work  of  plantation  in  New  En- 
gland." That  wholesome  counsel  may  have  been  given  in 
the  sermon  on  the  day  of  prayer  before  the  embarkation. 
It  may  have  been  spoken  in  more  informal  exhortation  on 

*  Winslow,  in  Young,  p.  388-396.  "A  godly  divine  coming  over  to  Ley- 
den,  in  Holland,  where  a  book  w^as  printed  anno  1619,  as  I  take  it,  shovv^ing 
the  nullity  of  the  Perth  Assembly  [one  of  the  books  for  which  Brewer  and 
Brewster  were  brought  into  trouble,  see  a7ite,  p.  272],  whom  we  judged  to  be 
the  author  of  it,  and  hidden  in  Holland  for  a  season  to  avoid  the  rage  of 
those  evil  times,  .  .  .  this  man  being  very  conversant  with  our  pastor,  Mr. 
Kobinson,  and  using  to  come  to  hear  him  on  the  Sabbath — after  sermon  end- 
ed, the  church  being  to  partake  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  this  minister  stood  up 
and  desired  he  might,  without  offense,  stay  and  see  the  manner  of  his  admin- 
istration and  our  participation  in  the  ordinance.  To  whom  our  pastor  an- 
swered in  these  very  words,  or  to  this  effect :  '  Reverend  sir,  you  may  not 
only  stay  to  behold  us,  but  partake  with  us  if  you  please ;  for  we  acknowledge 
the  churches  of  Scotland  to  be  the  churches  of  Christ,' etc.  The  minister 
also  replied  to  this  purpose,  if  not  also  in  the  same  words,  that  for  his  part 
he  could  comfortably  partake  with  the  church,  and  willingly  would,  but  that 
it  is  possible  some  of  his  brethren  in  Scotland  might  take  offense  at  his  act ; 
which  he  desired  to  avoid  in  regard  of  the  opinion  the  English  churches, 
with  which  they  held  communion  withal,  had  of  us.  However,  he  rendered 
thanks  to  Mr.  Robinson,  and  desired,  in  that  respect,  to  be  only  a  spectator 
of  us." 

It  should  be  observed  here  that,  according  to  Winslow's  report,  Robinson, 
in  giving  the  invitation,  professed  to  acknowledge  (not  the  National  Church, 
but)  the  churches  of  Scotland,  and  that  the  Scotchman,  in  his  reply,  said 
nothing  about  the  Church  of  England  as  having  a  bad  opinion  of  Separatists, 
but  mentioned  "the  English  churches,^^  meaning  those  parish  assemblies  in 
which  there  was  a  Puritan  administration  of  the  Gospel. 


A.D.  1G20.]  THE    REFORMERS    OF    SEPARATISM.  303 

the  clay  of  their  leaving  Leyclen,  when,  as  Winslow  tells,  "  tlie 
brethren  that  stayed  feasted  us  that  were  to  go,"  and  the 
pastor's  house,  after  their  tears,  resounded  with  psalms  and 
joyful  melody.  It  may  have  been  a  portion  of  w^hat  was  ut- 
tered while  they  were  in  their  last  meeting  at  Delft-Haven. 
We  may  even  suppose  the  reporter  to  have  thrown  together 
his  recollections  of  what  their  -wise  and  loving  pastor  said  on 
various  occasions  in  view  of  their  expected  departure.  It  is 
enough  that  we  have  it  from  a  credible  reporter,  and  that 
every  word  of  it  is  not  only  accordant  with  Robinson's  char- 
acter and  way  of  thinking,  but  might  even  be  confirmed  by 
quotations  from  his  wn*itings. 

"  We  were  ere  long  to  part  asunder ;  and  whether  ever  he 
should  live  to  see  our  faces  again,  was  known  to  tlie  Lord. 
But  whether  the  Lord  had  appointed  it  or  not,  he  charged 
us,  before  God  and  his  blessed  angels,  to  follow  him  no  further 
than  he  followed  Christ ;  and,  if  God  should  reveal  any  thing 
to  us  by  any  other  instrument  of  his,  to  be  as  ready  to  re- 
ceive it  as  ever  we  were  to  receive  any  truth  by  his  ministry ; 
for  he  was  very  confident  the  Lord  had  more  truth  and  light 
yet  to  break  forth  out  of  his  holy  Word.  He  took  occasion 
also  miserably  to  bewail  the  state  and  condition  of  the  Re- 
formed churches,  who  were  come  to  a  period  in  religion,  and 
would  go  no  further  than  the  instruments  of  their  reforma- 
tion. As,  for  example,  the  Lutherans :  they  could  not  be 
drawn  to  go  beyond  what  Luther  saw ;  for  whatever  part  of 
God's  will  he  had  further  impai'ted  and  revealed  to  Calvin, 
they  will  rather  die  than  embrace  it.  And  so  also  (saith  he) 
you  see  the  Calvinists:  they  stick  where  he  left  them;  a 
misery  much  to  be  lamented,  for  though  they  were  precious 
shining  lights  in  their  times,  God  had  not  revealed  his  whole 
will  to  them,  and  were  they  now  living  (saith  he),  they  would 
be  as  ready  and  willing  to  embrace  further  light  as  that  they 
had  received. 

"Here  also  he  put  us  in  mind  of  our  church  covenant,  or 
at  least  that  part  of  it  whereby  we  promise  and  covenant 


304  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCIIES.       [CH.  XIV. 

with  God,  and  one  with  another,  to  receive  whatever  light  or 
truth  sliall  be  made  known  to  us  from  his  written  Word. 
But  withal  he  exhorted  us  to  take  heed  what  we  received 
for  truth,  and  well  to  examine  and  compare  it,  and  weigh  it 
with  other  Scripture  of  truth  before  we  received  it.  For 
(saith  he)  it  is  not  possible  the  Christian  world  should  come 
so  lately  out  of  such  thick  antichristian  darkness,  and  full 
perfection  of  knowledge  break  forth  at  once. 

"Another  thing  he  commended  to  us  was  that  we  should 
use  all  means  to  avoid  and  shake  off  the  name  of  Brownist, 
that  being  a  mere  nickname  and  brand  to  make  religion  and 
the  professors  of  it  odious  to  the  Christian  world.  And  to 
that  end  (said  he),  I  should  be  glad  if  some  godly  minister 
would  go  over  with  you  before  my  coming ;  for  there  will 
be  no  difference  between  the  unconformable  ministers  and 
you,  when  they  come  to  the  practice  of  the  ordinances  out  of 
the  kingdom.  And  so  he  advised  us  to  close  with  the  godly 
party  of  the  kingdom  of  England,  and  rather  to  study  union 
than  division,  viz.,  how  near  we  might  possibly  without  sin 
close  with  them,  rather  than  in  the  least  measure  to  affect 
division  or  separation  from  them.  And  be  not  loath  to  take 
another  pastor  or  teacher  (saith  he),  for  that  flock  that  hath 
two  shepherds  is  not  endangered  but  secured  by  it." 

These  retrospective  details  have  arrested  the  progress  of 
our  story ;  but  they  help  us  to  realize  what  was  going  on 
while  the  Speedv^ell  and  the  3Iayrfioioei\  at  Southampton,  were 
receiving  their  freight  and  passengers  for  a  transatlantic 
voyage.  A  few  Christian  people,  earnest  in  their  faith,  self- 
sacrificing  in  their  zeal,  long  trained  under  the  discipline  of 
liardships  and  of  suffering  for  Christ,  taught  by  a  devoted 
pastor  who  had  brought  them  out  of  "  the  bitterness  of  sejD- 
aration"  into  more  catholic  sympathies,  and  bound  by  cov- 
enant to  receive  whatever  new  light  might  shine  upon  them 
fi-om  the  Word  of  God,  were  going  forth  to  develop,  in  a 
new  w^orld  beyond  the  ocean,  that  conception  of  organized 
Christianity  which  had  been  given  to  them,  but  for  which 
there  was  not  room  enou^rh  in  the  old  world  of  Eurone.    Thev 


A. D.  1620.]         THE    REFORMERS    OF    SEPARATISM.  305 

were  not,  consciously,  political  reformers,  going  to  organize 
civil  government  on  a  new  theory ;  nor  does  it  appear  tliat 
they  had  formed  a  definite  judgment  on  the  question  wheth- 
er the  government  which  had  protected  them  in  Holland 
was  theoretically  better  than  that  which  had  driven  them 
out  of  England.  Far  less  were  they  dreaming  of  a  recon- 
structed civilization  which  should  abolish  the  distinction  of 
rich  and  poor,  and  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to ;  their  indus- 
trious spirit  abhorred  even  the  temporary  and  limited  com- 
munism into  which  they  were  forced  by  the  mercantile  spir- 
it of  their  partners.  Nor  had  they  a  new  scheme  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine  to  provide  for.  They  held  in  all  sincerity  what 
was  then  the  common  Protestant  orthodoxy.  What  had 
been  given  to  them,  as  that  for  which  they  were  to  testify 
and  to  suffer  in  behalf  of  coming  ages,  was  an  idea  new  to 
that  age,  and  rejected  by  the  wise  and  the  mighty — the  re- 
covered idea  of  the  Christian  church  in  the  primitive  purity 
of  its  separation  from  the  world,  and  in  the  primitive  sim- 
plicity of  its  government.  What  would  be  the  consequences 
of  their  attempt  to  realize  that  idea  in  the  colonization  of 
America,  they  could  not  be  expected  to  know.  But  we,  who 
live  at  this  day,  can  see  that  their  theory  of  the  church  ne- 
cessitated a  new  theory  of  the  relations  between  the  church 
and  the  state.  In  their  theory,  beginning  at  the  postulate 
of  "  reformation  without  tarrying  for  any,"  the  church  is 
nothing  else  than  the  spontaneous  association  of  "the  Lord's 
free  people  "  for  spiritual  fellowship ;  and  neither  king  nor 
Parliament  can  put  a  man  into  a  church  or  put  him  out  of 
it.  Let  that  theory  be  recognized  in  the  beginning  of  a  com- 
monwealth, and,  unless  the  opposite  theory  come  in  after- 
ward with  prevailing  force,  all  churches  in  that  common- 
wealth, whatever  their  j^retensions,  will  be  simply  voluntary 
churches,  dependent  on  the  state  for  nothing  but  protection 
against  violence.  The  outcome  of  that  theory,  when  polit- 
ical organisms  shall  have  been  moulded  by  its  influence,  will 
be  a  new  era  of  religious  liberty. 


306  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XT. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    VOYAGE    OF   THE    "MAYFLOWER,"    EXPLORATION,  AND 
THE    LANDING    OF   THE    PILGRIMS. 

A  VOYAGE  across  the  Atlantic,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  might  be  accomplished,  perhaps,  in  thirty  days.  When 
those  two  little  vessels — the  Mayflower  and  the  Speedtoell — 
sailed  from  Southampton  (1620,  Aug.  5  =  15),  with  a  hundred 
and  twenty  passengers,  and  all  the  material  provided  for 
founding  a  colony  in  the  wilderness,  there  was  time  to  com- 
plete the  voyage,  if  prosperous,  before  the  autumnal  equinox. 
After  such  a  voyage,  there  would  still  be  time,  in  the  early 
days  of  autumn,  to  make  the  needful  preparation  for  safety 
and  comfort  through  the  winter.  But  hardly  were  they  at 
sea  when  the  Speedioell  was  reported  so  leaky  that  both  ships 
put  back  to  the  port  of  Dartmouth  for  repairs.  Two  weeks 
of  fine  weather  and  prosperous  winds  had  been  lost  when 
they  sailed  again  (Aug.  23 =Sept.  2).  A  hundred  leagues  from 
Land's  End,  the  master  of  their  misnamed  Speedwell  declared 
that  he  must  return  or  sink ;  and  so,  once  more,  they  turned 
back.  This  time  they  put  in  at  Plymouth.  There  the  Speed- 
well was  discharged,  as  unfit  for  such  a  voyage ;  and  there 
was  no  time,  if  there  had  been  means,  to  provide  a  substi- 
tute. Some  of  the  company  were  so  far  discouraged  by  these 
disasters  that  they  were,  at  least,  willing  to  wait  for  another 
opportunity.  Chief  among  these  Avas  Cushman,  exhausted 
by  so  many  months  of  incessant  labor,  enfeebled  by  illness, 
and  depressed  under  the  feeling  that  what  he  had  done  in 
the  matter  of  the  contract  with  the  Adventurers  was  disap- 
proved by  his  brethren.  Others,  in  consideration  of  their 
weakness,  or  of  the  young  children  in  their  care,  were  selected 
as  those  who  could  best  be  spared,  or  who  were  least  fitted 


A.D.  1620.]  VOYAGE    OF   THE    "MAYFLOWER."  30V 

"  to  bear  the  brunt  of  this  hard  adventure."  Twenty  of  the 
passengers,  willingly  or  reluctantly,  were  left  behind,  with 
whatever  freight  could  not  be  crowded  into  the  other  vessel ; 
and  at  last,  another  fortnight  having  been  lost  since  the  de- 
parture from  Dartmouth,  the  Mayflower^  deeply  laden  with 
one  hundred  and  two  passengers  and  all  the  outfit  of  the 
colony  they  were  to  plant,  sailed  once  more  (Sept.  6  =  16), 
alone,  to  struggle  with  the  storms  of  the  equinox. 

Could  we  forget  for  a  moment  this  nineteenth  century,  and 
all  that  God  has  wrought  since  that  sad,  but  resolute  com- 
pany of  Pilgrims  sailed  from  the  old  port  of  Plymouth,  we 
might  realize,  as  we  can  not  now,  the  uncertainties  of  the  ad- 
venture. Our  thoughts  follow  the  lonely  llayfloioer  on  the 
broad  ocean,  with  her  freight  of  human  life — of  brave  and  lov- 
ing hearts,  of  undaunted  courage  and  unswerving  faith  — 
making  her  way  slowly  against  adverse  winds,  tossed  by  the 
waves,  yet  struggling  toward  the  west.  What  if  she  should 
founder  ?  A  few  loving  friends  in  Leyden,  and  a  few  more 
in  England,  will  wait  for  tidings ;  their  trembling  hopes  for 
loved  ones  on  the  sea  will  change  to  fears — their  anxious 
fears  will  sadden  into  despair;  the  London  merchants  who 
have  risked  a  little  money  on  the  enterprise  will  charge  their 
investment  to  the  account  of  profit  and  loss ;  and  the  great 
world  will  never  miss  the  3Iayflo\oer.  May  she  not  go  dow^n 
— as  many  a  better  ship  goes  down — in  mid-ocean?  The 
probabilities  are  against  hei-,  but  God  is  with  her.  She  car- 
ries in  her  freight  the  future  of  the  world's  history.  He  whom 
the  winds  and  seas  obey  is  in  her,  and  his  angels  that  excel 
in  strength — those  ministers  of  his  that  do  his  pleasure — are 
ojuarding  her.  He  brings  her  to  her  predestined  haven,  and 
a  new  chapter  opens  in  the  history  of  the  Universal  Church 
and  of  humanity. 

Some  particular  incidents  of  the  voyage  were  thought 
worthy  to  be  put  on  record :  the  death  of  one  passenger,  a 
servant  to  one  of  the  Pilgrims  ;  the  birth  of  another,  whom 
his  parents,  in  commemoration  of  his  birthplace,  named  Ocea- 


308  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  XV. 

nus;  the  "serious  consultation"  which  some  of  the  chief  of 
the  company  held  with  "  the  master  and  other  officers  of  the 
ship,"  when,  having  sailed  half  way  across  the  Atlantic,  she 
was  in  danger  of  going  to  pieces  in  the  "  fierce  storms ;" 
and  how,  in  that  imminent  peril,  the  "bowed  and  cracked" 
main-beam  in  the  ship's  frame  was  forced  back  to  its  place 
and  made  fast  by  "  a  great  iron  screw  "  which  one  of  the 
passengers  had  brought  from  Holland,  with  no  thought  of  its 
being  put  to  that  use.  After  sixty-four  days  of  tossing  on 
the  sea,  they  saw  land  (Nov.  9  —  19),  which  proved  to  be 
Cape  Cod;  "and  the  appearance  of  it" — so  they  wrote  not 
long  afterward — "  much  comforted  us,  especially  seeing  so 
goodly  a  land,  and  wooded  to  the  brink  of  the  sea.  It  caused 
us  to  rejoice  together  and  praise  God  that  had  given  us  once 
again  to  see  land."  Two  days  later  (Nov.  llz=21)  the  May- 
flower dropped  her  anchor  in  the  still  water  of  what  is  now 
Provincetown  Harbor.^ 

There  they  were  to  find  "a  place  for  their  habitation." 
But  where  was  the  government  that  could  protect  them? 
"  Some  of  the  strangers  among  them  "  had  given  out  "  dis- 
contented and  mutinous "  intimations,  to  the  effect  that 
"  when  they  came  ashore  they  would  use  their  own  liberty, 
for  none  had  power  to  command  them."  Their  patent  con- 
ceded to  them  certain  rights  in  Virginia;  but  over  the  ter- 
ritory where  they  were  now  to  establish  their  colony  the 
Virginia  Company  had  no  jurisdiction.  Either  they  must 
institute  a  government  for  themselves,  or  they  would  be  at 
the  mercy  of  unreasonable  men.  They  were  not  at  a  loss 
what  to  do  in  that  emergency;  for,  evidently,  they  had  al- 
ready considered  the  question,  and  had  concluded  that  their 
own  combination  to  institute  a  government  "might  be  as  firm 
as  any  patent,  and  in  some  respects  more  sure."  A  colony 
already  planted  in  the  New  England  wilderness,  and  having 
a  government  of  its  own,  might  negotiate  with  the  "honor- 

^  Note  at  the  end  of  the  chapter. 


xV.D.  1620.]  VOYAGE    OF    THE    "MAYFLOWER."  309 

able  lords"  of  the  Plymouth  Council  for  recognition  and  a 
concession  of  territory,  and  miglit  obtain  a  more  liberal  pat- 
ent than  would  have  been  granted  to  a  company  of  Separa- 
tists negotiating  before  their  migration. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  those  men  in  the  cabin  of 
the  Mayfloioer  had  formed  a  system  of  political  pliilosophy, 
still  less  that  they  had  adopted  tlie  theory  which  deduces  all 
social  rights  and  duties  from  an  imaginary  social  compact. 
They  were  practical  men,  not  theorists;  their  minds  had 
been  enlightened  and  invigorated  by  the  study  of  the  Bible ; 
as  Englishmen,  they  were  familiar  with  the  idea  of  municipal 
self-government ;  and  their  j^olitical  knowledge  had  been  en- 
larged by  a  long  residence  in  republican  Holland.  It  was 
only  necessary  for  them  to  use  their  common-sense  in  deal- 
ing with  a  practical  question.  As  they  formed  a  church,  six- 
teen years  before,  by  the  simple  method  of  a  covenant,  it  was 
natural  for  them  to  use  the  same  method  in  forming  a  state. 
The  form  of  their  "combination"  was  marvelously  simple. 
Prefixing  devoutly  the  words  which  were  customarily  re- 
garded as  giving  sacredness  to  a  compact  or  a  testament, 
they  first  professed  their  loyalty  as  English  subjects — and 
with  good  reason,  for  they  were  founding  an  English  colony 
on  soil  belonging  by  the  common  consent  of  nations  to  the 
King  of  England,  and  they  desired  and  expected  that  their 
native  country  would  protect  them  against  foreign  aggres- 
sion. They  referred  to  the  significant  fact  that  they  were 
planting  "  the  first  colony  in  the  northern  parts  of  Virginia." 
With  no  other  profession  or  apology — with  no  recognition  of 
any  possible  doubt  whether  they  had  a  right  to  do  what  they 
were  doing — they  recorded  and  subscribed  their  compact. 
"We  whose  names  are  underwritten  ...  do  by  these  pres- 
ents solemnly  and  mutually,  in  the  presence  of  God  and  one 
of  another,  covenant  and  combine  ourselves  together  into  a 
civil  body  politic,  for  our  better  ordering  and  preservation 
and  furtherance  of  the  end  aforesaid,"  namely,  "the  glory  of 
God  and  advancement  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  the  honor 


310         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECIIES.         [CH.  XV. 

of  our  king  and  country."  "By  virtue  hereof,"  they  said — 
that  is,  by  the  powers  inherent  in  the  civil  body  politic 
which  we  now  constitute — we  are  "to  enact,  constitute,  and 
frame  such  just  and  equal  laws,  ordinances,  acts,  constitu- 
tions, and  offices,  from  time  to  time,  as  shall  be  thought  most 
meet  and  convenient  for  the  general  good  of  the  colony — 
unto  which  we  promise  all  due  submission  and  obedience." 

The  compact  was  subscribed  not  only  by  members  of  the 
Pilo^rim  church  and  friends  who  had  been  associated  with 
them  in  Holland  or  had  joined  them  in  England,  but  also 
by  some  who  were  "  strangers  among  them,"  employed,  per- 
haps, by  the  Adventurers.  At  the  same  time,  it  may  be  noted 
that  some  of  the  men  who  came  in  the  Mayflov^er^  and  were 
counted  among  the  earliest  settlers  in  the  colony — on  whom 
therefore  the  laws  that  might  be  enacted  under  the  comjjact 
would  be  binding — are  not  found  among  those  who  are  re- 
ported to  us  as  subscribers  to  that  memorable  instrument. 

Having  subscribed  their  agreement,  the  Pilgrims  seem  not 
to  have  thought  it  necessary,  at  that  time,  to  make  any  laws, 
or  to  define  the  powers  of  any  magistrate.  "They  chose,  or 
rather  confirmed,  Mr.  John  Carver — a  man  godly  and  well 
approved  among  them — their  governor  for  that  year;"  and 
that  was  enough.  A  governor  and  two  or  three  assistants 
had  been  chosen  at  Southampton  for  each  ship  ;^  and  Car- 
ver, it  seems,  had  been  governor  of  the  Mayflotoer  on  the 
voyage.  His  administration  had  been  satisfactory  while  they 
were  at  sea;  and  at  the  end  of  the  voyage  he  was  "confirmed  " 
in  the  same  office. 

"  Being  thus  arrived  in  a  good  harbor  and  brought  safe  to 
land,  they  fell  upon  their  knees  and  blessed  the  God  of 
heaven,  who  had  brought  them  over  the  vast  and  furious 
ocean,  and  delivered  them  from  all  the  perils  and  miseries 
thereof,  again  to  set  their  feet  on  the  firm  and  stable  earth, 
their  proper  element."     But  they  had  not  yet  found  a  place 

'  Ajite,  p.  288. 


A.D.  1620.  j  EXPLORATION.  311 

of  habitation.  Late  as  the  season  was,  and  weary  as  they 
were  of  their  life  on  shipboard,  they  must  cautiously  explore 
the  coast,  and  must  use  their  best  discretion  in  selecting  a 
site  for  their  colony,  before  they  could  venture  to  disembark. 
They  had  now  become  "  a  civil  body  politic,"  with  an  organ- 
ization adequate  to  their  present  need.  Their  governor  had 
already  an  armed  force  at  his  command,  and  that  same  day 
a  pioneer  party,  with  "fifteen  or  sixteen  men  well  armed," 
was  sent  on  shore  to  renew  the  exhausted  supply  of  fuel,  as 
well  as  to  make  a  beginning  of  exploration.  At  night  the 
pioneers  returned  in  safety,  having  found  the  neighborhood 
a  perfect  solitude,  and  with  a  boat-load  of  red  cedar,  which 
they  called  juniper.  Welcome  was  the  supply  of  fuel  in 
that  chill  November  air ;  and  in  later  years  some  of  those 
passengers  remembered  how  sweet  was  the  odor  of  it  after 
their  nine  weeks'  experience  of  bilge-water  smells,  and  all 
the  similar  annoyances  in  their  overcrowded  vessel. 

The  next  day  was  the  Christian  day  of  weekly  rest ;  and 
in  their  unswerving  deference  to  God's  commandments,  they 
remembered  the  Sabbath-day  to  keep  it  holy.  On  Monday 
(Nov.  13  =  23),  they  hurried  forward  their  preparation  for 
determining  where  their  new  home  should  be.  They  had 
brought  with  them,  among  all  the  miscellanies  of  their  car- 
go, a  shallop  for  use  in  exploring  the  coast,  and  as  part  of 
the  necessary  furniture  of  their  colony.  When  the  shallop, 
having  been  partly  taken  to  pieces,  and  otherwise  needing 
repairs,  had  been  unshipped  and  drawn  on  land  for  the  car- 
penter (which  was  the  first  work  of  that  Monday  morning), 
the  people  went  ashore  to  refresh  themselves;  and  there  the 
women,  with  housewifely  zeal,  improved  the  opportunity  to 
do  the  homely  Monday  work  of  washing  clothes,  "  as  they 
had  great  need."  Joyful  was  that  washing-day — odors  of 
pine  and  sassafras  in  the  air,  and  "coals  of  juniper"  under 
their  kettles — not  less  joyful  than  toilsome ;  for  their  feet 
were  at  last  on  the  soil  of  New  England. 

X 


312         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XV. 

We  need  not  rclioarse  in  detail  the  story  of  their  three  ex- 
peditions in  search  of  a  i>lace  for  settlement.  The  briefest 
summary  will  serve  our  purpose.  First,  while  the  carpenter 
was  proceeding  with  the  "slow  work"  of  repairing  the  shal- 
lop, sixteen  volunteers  obtained  leave  to  travel  by  land,  and 
set  out,  on  Wednesday, "  with  every  man  his  musket,  sword, 
and  corslet,  under  the  conduct  of  Captain  Miles  Standish." 
They  saw  Indians,  who  fled  from  them  in  terror  and  could 
not  be  overtaken.  After  twenty-four  hours  of  thirst  (for 
they  carried  "  neither  beer  nor  water"  with  them,  and  their 
food  was  "only  biscuit  and  Holland  cheese"),  they  found 
fresh  springs  in  one  of  the  sandy  valleys  of  Cape  Cod ;  and 
delightful  was  their  first  draught  of  New  England  water. 
They  found  old  Indian  corn-fields,  Indian  graves,  a  ship's 
kettle — with  other  obscure  signs  that  shipwrecked  mariners 
had  been  there,  and  perhaps  had  perished  there.  They  found, 
also,  deposits  of  Indian  corn,  from  which  they  took  what 
they  could  carry,  but  no  Indian  habitation.  Near  the  de- 
serted corn-fields,  they  found  what  seemed  a  convenient  har- 
bor; but  they  were  constrained  to  "  leave  the  further  discov- 
ery of  it  to  the  shallop."  When  their  two  days'  leave  of  ab- 
sence had  expired,  they  returned,  "  like  the  men  from  Eshcol, 
carrying  with  them  of  the  fruits  of  the  land ;"  and  thus,  said 
they,  "  we  came  both  weary  and  welcome  home,  and  deliv- 
ered in  our  corn  into  the  store  to  be  kept  for  seed,  for  we 
knew  not  how  to  come  by  any,  and  therefore  were  very 
glad,  purposing  so  soon  as  we  could  meet  with  any  of  the 
inhabitants  of  that  place  to  make  them  large  satisfaction." 

Their  second  expedition,  much  more  considerable  than  the 
first,  was  when  the  shallop  had  been  at  last  made  ready. 
Twenty-four  men  were  selected  and  armed  (Nov.  27=Dec.  7), 
to  "make  a  more  full  discovery"  of  the  supposed  harbor  and 
its  environs.  Jones,  the  master  of  tlie  Mayflower^  and  ten 
of  his  men,  with  his  long-boat,  accompanied  them.  Hardly 
had  they  parted  from  the  ship,  when  "  rough  weather  and 
cross  winds"  compelled  them  to  row  to  the  nearest  land  the 


A.D.  1620.]  EXPLORATION.  313 

wind  would  permit  tliem  to  reach ;  then,  wading  to  the 
shore,  they  marched  several  miles  in  a  driving  and  freezing 
snow-storm  before  encamping  for  the  night.  The  next  day, 
when  their  boats,  not  long  before  noon,  had  come  to  the  ren- 
dezvous (Nov.  28=Dec.  8),  they  found  that  the  creek  whicli 
had  seemed  to  invite  their  settlement,  though  a  harbor  for 
boats,  was  not  deep  enough  for  ships.  Then  visiting  the 
place  where  the  former  expedition  had  found  deposits  of  In- 
dian corn,  and  finding  larger  supplies,  they  brought  away 
"in  all  about  ten  bushels"  for  the  next  spring's  planting. 
At  this  point  Jones  left  them,  and  with  him  they  sent  back 
to  the  Mayflower  those  of  their  company  whose  strengtli 
seemed  inadequate  to  the  hardships  they  were  enduring. 
Eighteen  of  the  thirty-four  remained  "  to  make  further  dis- 
covery, and  to  find  out  the  Indians'  habitations ;"  for  they 
desired  to  meet  their  wild  neighbors,  to  open  a  friendly  in- 
tercourse with  them,  and  "  to  make  them  large  satisfaction '' 
for  the  seed-corn.  They  found  at  last  two  wigwams  "  which 
had  been  lately  dwelt  in,  but  the  people  were  gone ;"  and 
with  that  unsatisfactory  discovery  they  returned  to  their 
friends  after  an  absence  of  three  days  (Nov.  30=Dec.  10). 

A  debate  followed  in  the  little  commonwealth  on  the  re- 
port of  that  second  exploring  party.  "  The  heart  of  winter 
and  unseasonable  weather  was  come  upon  us  "  (such  was  the 
most  urgent  argument  against  continued  exploration),  "so 
that  we  could  not  go  upon  coasting  and  discovery  without 
danger  of  losing  men  and  boat,  upon  which  would  follow  the 
overthrow  of  all."  On  the  other  hand,  Robert  Coppin, 
second  mate  of  the  Mayflower^  who  served  as  pilot,  told  them 
of  a  place  which  he  had  visited  in  some  former  voyage — a 
"  navigable  river  and  good  harbor  "  near  the  opposite  head- 
land of  Cape  Cod  Bay,  about  twenty-four  miles  in  a  straight 
line  from  where  their  weather-beaten  vessel  was  then  anchor- 
ed. In  the  end  it  was  resolved  to  make  one  more  attempt. 
Ten  men,  some  of  them  the  most  distinguished  in  the  com- 
pany, offered  themselves  for  the  perilous  service,  and  were 


314  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XV. 

appointed  by  common  consent.  To  these  were  added  two 
of  the  seamen  who  had  been  employed  to  remain  in  the  col- 
ony, and  six  of  the  Mayfloioer^s  officers  and  crew.  Eighteen 
in  all — ten  of  them,  at  least,  heavily  armed — embarked  in 
the  frail  shallop,  laden  with  as  much  provision  as  could  be 
aftbrded  for  their  voyage,  to  encounter  the  perils  of  that  last 
and  most  unseasonable  exploration.  Should  they  be  lost,  all 
would  be  lost.^ 

Wednesday  of  another  week — the  fourth  since  the  arrival 
at  Cape  Cod — had  come  (Dec.  6  =  16),  before  the  final  expe- 
dition could  be  sent  forth,  the  weather  on  Tuesday  having 
been  "  too  foul."  In  their  shallop,  and  under  that  "  very  cold 
and  hard  weather,"  they  could  not  venture  to  sail  directly 
across  the  bay  toward  the  "navigable  river  and  good  har- 
bor," which  their  pilot  had  undertaken  to  find,  and  beyond 
which  their  instructions  forbade  them  to  go.  After  clearing, 
with  much  difficulty,  the  sandy  point  behind  which  their 
ship  was  anchored,  they  sailed  southward  along  the  eastern 
shore  of  the  bay,  where  they  had  smoother  water.  But  so 
severe  was  the  cold  that  their  clothes,  wet  with  the  spray, 
were  frozen,  and  became  "  like  coats  of  iron."  As  night  came 
on,  they  went  on  shore,  built  a  slight  defense,  gathered  fire- 
wood, posted  their  sentinels,  and  took  what  rest  was  possible 
under  such  conditions.  The  next  day  (Dec.  7  =  17)  they  di- 
vided their  force,  eight  of  them  marching  through  the  woods, 
while  the  shallop  with  the  rest  was  creeping  along  the  coast ; 
and  at  night  they  encamped  again  as  before.  Long  before 
dawn  they  "began  to  be  stirring;"  and,  though  they  had 
been  roused  in  the  night  by  what  they  supposed  to  be  a 
pack  of  wolves  howling  around  their  camp,  and  repulsed  by 
firing  a  couple  of  muskets,  they  suspected  no  danger.  "  Aft- 
er prayer,"  while  they  were  preparing,  in  the  twilight,  for 
breakfast  and  for  their  journey,  they  were  alarmed  by  "  a 
great  and  strange  cry,"  and  a  shower  of  Indian  ari'ows,     A 

*  The  story  of  these  expeditions  is  given  by  Bradford,  p.  80-88,  and  by 
Bradford  and  Winslow,  in  Young,  p.  1 17-162. 


A.D.  1620.]  EXPLORATION.  315 

short  engagement  followed — the  sliooting  of  arrows  on  one 
side  and  of  bullets  on  the  other;  but  the  Indians  fled  as  soon 
as  one  of  them,  who  seemed  to  be  their  leader,  had  been 
wounded.  The  victors,  after  pursuing  the  enemy  far  enougli 
to  show  that  they  were  "  not  afraid  nor  any  way  discour- 
aged, gave  solemn  thanks  to  God  for  their  deliverance,"  and 
gathered  up  a  bundle  of  arrows  that  might  help  to  show  in 
England  what  manner  of  entering  in  they  had  among  the 
wild  natives. 

Such  was  the  beginning  of  their  third  day  on  this  expe- 
dition. It  was  almost  the  shortest  day  of  the  year  (Dec. 
8  =  18),  and  the  hours  of  light  were  precious.  With  a 
wind  which  favored  them  at  first,  they  ran  westward  along 
the  curving  shore,  then  turning  northward,  and  finding  no 
place  that  seemed  to  invite  their  attention,  they  hastened 
toward  the  harbor  of  which  Coppin  had  told  them.  After 
an  hour  or  two  of  sailing,  that  northeast  wind  brought  rain 
and  snow,  and  later  in  the  day  it  grew  violent.  The  shore, 
trending  northward,  had  become  a  lee  shore,  and  "the  seas 
began  to  be  very  rough."  In  that  storm  their  rudder  broke, 
and  two  men  wdth  oars  were  hardly  able  to  steer  the  crip- 
pled boat.  "  Be  of  good  cheer,"  said  the  pilot,  "  I  see  the 
harbor."  The  storm  was  increasing  ;  night  was  coming  on  ; 
they  raised  all  the  sail  they  could  carry,  rowing  at  the  same 
time  for  their  lives,  "  to  get  in  while  they  could  see."  Just 
then,  the  darkness  every  moment  thickening,  their  mast  was 
splintered  in  the  gale,  and  the  sail  fell  overboard.  "  Yet, 
by  God's  mercy,  they  recovered  themselves ;"  and  the  flood- 
tide,  coming  in  from  the  east,  carried  them  into  the  harbor. 
But  they  were  not  yet  safe.  "  The  Lord  be  merciful  to  us  !" 
cried  the  pilot,  Coppin  ;  "  my  eyes  never  saw  this  place  be- 
fore." They  had  doubled  the  point  now  called  Gurnet  Head, 
and  were  in  a  cove  full  of  breakers,  the  white  foam  just  visi- 
ble in  that  fading  light.  Coppin  and  Clark  (the  two  mas- 
ter's mates  of  the  3£ayfloioer)  would  have  run  the  boat 
ashore,  when  a  stout  sailor,  one  of  the  steersmen,  shouted  to 


316         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XV. 

the  rowers,  "  About  with  her !  or  we  are  cast  away,"  and 
she  was  saved  from  the  breakers.  Peering  through  the  dark- 
ness, "  he  bade  them  be  of  good  cheer  and  row  lustily,  for 
there  was  a  fdiv  sound  before  them,  and  he  doubted  not  they 
would  find  a  place  where  they  might  ride  in  safety."  He 
was  right.  The  rowers  did  their  part,  and,  in  the  darkness 
and  tlie  pouring  rain,  they  found  themselves  "  under  the  lee 
of  a  small  island,"  in  smooth  water,  where  there  was  "  sandy 
ground."  There  they  waited  for  the  morning.  Some  of 
them,  remembering  how  that  day  begun,  would  have  remain- 
ed in  the  boat,  deeming  it  better  to  brave  the  elements  than 
to  stumble  upon  a  nest  of  savages.  Others  were  so  exhaust- 
ed with  fatigue  and  cold  that  they  ventured  ashore,  and  hav- 
ing succeeded  in  kindling  a  fire,  they  were  followed  by  the 
rest;  "for  after  midnight  the  wind  shifted  to  the  northwest, 
and  it  froze  hard." 

A  day  full  of  labor  and  peril  had  ended  in  a  night  with- 
out rest.  "  Yet  God  gave  them  a  morning  of  comfort  and  re- 
freshing; .  .  .  for  the  next  day  [Dec.  9 nil 9]  was  a  fliir  sun- 
shining  day,  and  they  found  themselves  to  be  on  an  island  se- 
cure from  the  Indians,  where  they  might  dry  their  stuff,  fix 
their  pieces,  and  rest  themselves ;  and  [they]  gave  God  thanks 
for  his  mercies  in  their  manifold  deliverances."  That  was 
the  last  day  of  the  week,  and  by  recruiting  their  strength, 
drying  their  clothes  and  equipments,  and  refitting  their  fire- 
arms, "they  prepared  there  to  keep  the  Sabbath."  Precious 
as  time  was  to  them  and  to  their  companions  at  Cape  Cod, 
they  were  sure  that  no  time  would  be  gained,  even  in  that 
emergency,  by  not  keeping  religiously  the  day  of  holy  rest. 
(Dec.  10  =  20). 

On  Monday,  they  first  sounded  the  harbor,  and  were  sat- 
isfied with  its  capabilities  (Dec.  11=21).  Then  they  "march- 
ed also  into  the  land,  and  found  divers  corn-fields,  a  place 
very  good  for  situation."  At  least,  it  was  the  best  they 
could  find  ;  and  the  season,  and  their  present  necessity,  made 
them  glad  to  accept  it.     So  they  returned  to  their  shij^  again 


PLYMOUTH.       TFROM   YOUNG.) 


A.D.  1620.]  LANDING    OF   THE    PILGRIMS.  317 

with  this  news  to  the  rest  of  their  people,  which  "  did  much 
comfort  their  hearts."^ 

On  Friday  of  the  same  week  (Dec.  15  =  25),  the  Mayflower 
weighed  anchor  for  the  harbor  where  lier  passengers  and 
cargo  were  to  be  landed ;  but,  the  wind  being  adverse,  she 
did  not  arrive  till  the  next  day.  Just  five  weeks  from  the 
day  of  her  arrival  at  Cape  dod  she  "furled  her  tattered 
sails  "  in  the  harbor  which  Captain  John  Smith,  six  years  be- 
fore, had  named  Plymouth.  The  Pilgrims,  remembering  their 
relation  to  the  Plymouth  Council,  as  w^ell  as  the  kindness  of 
friends  at  the  port  from  which  they  last  sailed,  had  no  occa- 
sion to  inquire  what  the  name  of  their  colony  should  be. 
After  their  long  voyage  from  Plymouth,  in  England,  they 
found  themselves  at  another  Plymouth  in  N'ew  England. 

Again  the  church,  which  through  four  months  had  floated  in 
the  Jia?//ot^er,  kept  its  Sabbath  on  shipboard  (Dec.  17  =  27), 
worshiping  under  the  presidency  of  its  ruling  elder,  and 
taught  by  him  and  by  each  other,  according  to  their  gifts  of 
wisdom  and  of  utterance,  in  the  exercise  of  prophesying.  On 
Monday  the  Pilgrims  entered  on  a  more  careful  examination 
of  the  environs  of  their  harbor.  They  found  traces  of  former 
inhabitants,  and  where  they  had  planted  corn,  but  not  even 
a  ruined  wigwam  to  indicate  that  the  place  had  been  recent- 
ly occupied.  While  they  saw  much  that  seemed  inviting, 
they  were  not  ready,  at  first  view,  to  fix  upon  a  site  for  build- 
ing. Another  day  was  devoted  to  similar  inquiries,  and  was 
closed  with  a  resolution  that,  after  another  night's  repose, 
they  would  determine  at  which  of  several  places  their  settle- 
ment should  begin.  Accordingly,  the  next  morning,  after 
calling  on  God  for  direction,  they  eliminated  from  the  prob- 
lem all  but  two  of  the  places  they  had  thought  of,  and  then 
went  ashore  to  take  a  better  view  of  those  two  before  decid- 
ing between  them.     By  a  majority  of  voices  they  determined 

^  Bradford,  returning  with  the  other  explorers,  met  the  news  of  his  wife's 
death.  She  fell  overboard,  and  was  drowned  (Dec.  7  =  17),  the  day  after  his 
leaving  her. 


318  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XV. 

to  begin  their  settlement  "  on  a  high  ground  "  which  offered 
them  many  advantages.  Their  own  description  tells  what 
the  place  was  as  they  then  saw  it.  "There  is  a  great  deal 
of  land  cleared,  and  hath  been  planted  with  corn  three  or 
four  years  ago;  and  there  is  a  very  sweet  brook  runs  under 
the  hillside,  and  many  delicate  springs  of  as  good  water  as 
can  be  drunk,  and  where  we  may  harbor  our  shallops  and 
boats  exceeding  well;  and  in  this  brook  much  good  fish  in 
their  seasons ;  on  the  farther  side  of  the  river  also  much 
corn-ground  cleared.  In  one  field  is  a  great  hill,  on  which 
we  point  [propose]  to  make  a  platform  and  plant  our  ord- 
nance, which  will  command  all  round  about.  From  thence 
we  may  see  into  the  bay,  and  far  into  the  sea ;  and  we  may 
see  thence  Cape  Cod.*  Our  greatest  labor  will  be  fetching 
of  our  wood,  which  is  half  a  quarter  of  an  English  mile  ;  but 
there  is  enough  so  far  off." 

That  day  they  made  a  beginning  there ;  and  at  night,  re- 
solving that  in  the  morning  they  would  come  ashore  in  full 
force  to  build  houses,  they  left  a  few  men  encamped  on  the 
spot.  Two  days  of  tempest  followed,  in  which  it  was  im- 
possible for  those  on  shipboard  to  communicate  with  those 
on  shore.  But  on  Saturday  they  began,  with  all  their  avail- 
able strength,  to  provide  material  for  building,  cutting  down 
trees  for  timber  and  dragging  them  to  the  place.  Some  re- 
mained through  the  next  day  to  keep  guard  on  shore  while 
keeping  the  Sabbath ;  but  the  public  worship  was  where  the 
church  was,  on  the  Mayflower. 

^  The  "great  hill"  is  "Burial  Hill,  rising  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  covering  about  eight  acres.  The  view  from 
this  eminence  —  embracing  the  harbor,  the  beach,  the  Gurnet,  Manomet 
Point,  Clark's  Island,  Saquish,  Captain's  Hill  in  Duxbury,  and  the  shores  of 
the  bay  for  miles  around — is  unrivaled  by  any  sea-view  in  the  country." — 
Young,  p.  167,  1G8.     So  says  Pierpont : 

"The  earliest  ray  of  the  golden  day 
On  that  hallowed  spot  is  cast ; 
And  the  evening  sun,  as  he  leaves  the  world, 
Looks  kindly  on  that  spot  Jast." 


/|l'/'|i';'l!l''r.-( 


m' 


A.D.  1620.]  LANDING    OF   THE    PILGRIMS.  319 

Monday  was  the  great  ecclesiastical  festival  of  Christmas 
— a  day  which  neither  Christ  nor  his  apostles  had  made  holy 
— a  holiday  which,  in  the  view  of  the  Pilgrims,  was  more 
nearly  related  to  the  pagan  Saturnalia  than  to  any  due  com- 
memoration of  the  world's  Redeemer,  and  against  which  they 
had  testified  even  in  Holland.  It  was  with  a  not  unpleasant 
consciousness  of  being  in  a  new  world  that  they  returned  to 
their  work.  "  We  went  on  shore,"  they  say,  "  some  to  fell 
timber,  some  to  saw,  some  to  rive,  and  some  to  carry ;  so  no 
man  rested  all  that  dayP  On  that  day  they  "  began  to  erect 
the  first  house  for  common  use,  to  receive  them  and  their 
goods."  Another  circumstance  made  it  a  memorable  Christ- 
mas to  them.  The  supply  of  beer  with  which  they  had  left 
England  was  beginning  to  fail.  On  that  day,  they  say, "  we 
began  to  drink  water  aboard.  But  at  night  the  master 
caused  us  to  have  some  beer;  and  so  on  board  we  had, divers 
times,  now  and  then,  some  beer,  but  on  shore  none  at  all." 
They  had  something  to  learn  about  the  virtues  of  water  as  a 
drink. 

With  frequent  interruptions  by  "  foul  weather,  that  they 
could  not  go  ashore,"  they  pursued  their  work.  Three  days 
after  the  Christmas  when  "no  man  rested,"  they  began  to 
build  their  fortification  on  Burial  Hill.  On  the  same  day  they 
laid  out  a  street  now  known  as  Leyden  Street,  and  made  ar- 
rangements for  building  a  common  house,  and  private  houses 
for  the  nineteen  families  into  which  they  divided  their  com- 
pany. Under  their  busy  hands,  the  street  soon  began  to 
show  the  beginning  of  a  civilized  settlement.  Now  and 
then  "great  smokes  of  fire,"  miles  away,  reminded  them  that, 
while  they  trusted  in  God,  they  must  be  ready  to  defend 
themselves.  Some  of  them  attempted  to  find  the  Indians,  in 
hope  of  establishing  friendly  relations  with  them ;  but  they 
could  find  only  deserted  wigwams.  No  Indian  showed  him- 
self near  them ;  but  they  never  knew  how  many  savages 
might  be  lurking  and  watching  in  the  woods  around  them. 
When  the  common  house — only  about  twenty  feet  square — 


320  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XV. 

was  so  nearly  completed  that  it  needed  only  the  thatched 
roof  that  was  to  cover  it  (Jan.  9  =  19),  they  distributed  by 
lot,  according  to  Bible  precedents,  "  the  meersteads  and  gar- 
den-plots "  of  their  little  town,  and  agreed  that  every  man 
should  build  his  own  house,  thinking  that  "by  that  cause  men 
would  make  more  haste  than  working  in  common." 

The  day  came  when  they  had  purposed,  as  a  church,  to 
keep  the  Sabbath  on  shore  (Jan.  14z=r24),  the  majority  of  the 
congregation  being  there.  But  that  morning,  about  six 
o'clock,  in  a  high  wind,  the  thatch  of  their  "  great  new  ren- 
dezvous "  took  fire  from  a  spark,  and  went  off  in  a  blaze.  The 
house  was  full  of  beds  laid  side  by  side ;  loaded  muskets 
were  hanging  on  the  walls  or  standing  in  corners ;  powder 
was  under  the  beds  in  canisters  or  powder-horns;  Carver 
and  Bradford,  lying  sick,  were  in  imminent  danger  of  being 
"  blown  up  with  powder."  But  they  "  rose  with  good  speed," 
and  the  building  and  all  the  lives  were  saved,  though  the 
chief  loss  came  on  those  two.  The  people  on  shipboard, 
more  than  a  mile  from  the  shore,  saw  the  fire,  and  naturally 
supposed  that  the  Indians  were  there  ;  but  they  could  do 
nothing,  for  the  tide  was  out.  When  the  coming  in  of  the 
tide,  an  hour  later,  permitted  them  to  land  and  to  see  how 
little  harm  the  fire  had  done,  we  may  be  sure  the  worship  of 
the  assembled  church,  under  that  wintry  sky,  though  it  may 
have  deviated  in  some  points  from  their  ordinary  public 
worship,  was  fervent  with  the  thankfulness  of  joy.  For  the 
next  Sunday  (Jan.  21  =  31)  their  simple  record  is,  "  We  kept 
our  meeting  on  land." 

The  church  that  embarked  at  Delft-Haven,  and  re-embarked 
at  Southampton — the  organized  church  that  has  floated  in 
the  Mayflower  so  many  weeks  and  weary  months,  keeping 
its  holy  Sabbaths,  mingling  its  prayers  and  psalms  with  the 
voices  of  the  wind  and  the  sea — is  landed  at  last  "on  the  wild 
New  England  shore."  From  the  day  when  it  begins  to  hold 
its  worshiping  assembly  on  Burial  Hill,  organized  Christian- 
ity— Christ's  catholic  Church  in  its  simplest  and  most  prim- 


A.D.  1620.]  LANDING    OF   THE    PILGRIMS.  321 

itive  organization— is  planted  here.  The  Christian  church 
has  brought  with  it  the  Christian  state,  organized  for  the 
time  under  the  form  of  a  pure  democracy.  But  in  these  ar- 
rangements there  is  no  identification  of  the  church  with  the 
state — no  subjection  of  either  in  its  own  sphere  to  the  dicta- 
tion of  the  other.  In  the  Separatist  colony  of  Plymouth  there 
is  a  free  church,  dependent  on  the  state  for  nothing  but  pro- 
tection ;  and  a  free  state,  in  which  the  church  has  no  con- 
trol otherwise  than  by  quickening  and  enlightening  the  mor- 
al sense  of  the  people.  That  which  will  be  the  American 
system  of  the  relations  between  the  church  and  the  state  has 
come  into  being  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayfloioer ;  and  a  church 
history  distinctively  American  has  begun  when  the  Pilgrims 
transfer  the  government  of  their  little  commonwealth,  and 
the  Sabbath  assemblies  of  their  church,  from  the  ship  which 
has  brought  them  across  the  ocean  to  the  shore  which  their 
footsteps  consecrate  to  liberty  and  to  God. 

Note  referred  to  on  page  ?)08  : 

"After  some  deliberation  had  among  themselves  and  with  the  master 
of  the  ship,  they  tacked  about  and  resolved  to  stand  for  the  southward,  ...  to 
find  some  place  about  Hudson's  Kiver  for  their  habitation.  But  after  they 
had  sailed  that  course  about  half  the  day,  they  fell  among  dangerous  shoals 
and  roaring  breakers ;  and  they  were  so  far  entangled  therewith  as  they  con- 
ceived themselves  in  great  danger ;  and,  the  wind  shrinking  upon  them  with- 
al, they  resolved  to  bear  up  again  for  the  cape." — Bradford,  p.  77. 

It  has  been  assumed  that  the  intention  of  the  Pilgrims,  when  they  sailed 
from  England,  was  to  settle  in  the  territory  for  which  they  had  a  patent 
from  the  Virginia  Company — in  other  words,  south  of  the  Hudson.  But 
had  not  their  plan  been  gradually  modified  ever  since  the  beginning  of  their 
intercourse  with  Weston? — Ante^  p.  276,  278  ;  Bradford,  p.  43,  44.  Did 
they  not,  when  they  sailed,  regard  themselves  as  "  having  undertaken,  for 
the  glory  of  God  and  advancement  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  honor  of  our 
king  and  country,  a  voyage  to  plant  the  first  colony  in  the  northern  parts 
of  Virginia,"  where  the  Virginia  Company  had  no  jurisdiction  or  posses- 
sion ?  That  voyage  was  undertaken  at  the  very  time  when  the  disorganized 
Plymouth  Council  for  colonizing  "the  north  parts  of  Virginia"  were  urging 
their  petition  to  be  reincorporated,  and  "that  their  territory  may  be  called 
— as  by  the  Prince,  his  Highness,  it  hath  been  named — New  England. "    The 

Y 


^ 


322 


GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.XV. 


arrival  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Southampton  (from  Leyden)  was  ten  days  before  the 
date  of  the  king's  warrant  to  his  solicitor  (July  21,0.  S. ),  "  to  prepare  a 
new  patent  for  the  Adventurers  to  the  northern  colony  of  Virginia."  Six 
days  before  the  Mayflower  came  in  sight  of  Cape  Cod,  the  new  patent  incor- 
porating the  Plymouth  Council, "for  the  planting,  ruling,  ordering,  and  gov- 
erning of  Xew  England, "  received  the  royal  signature. — Prince,  p.  1 60.  "  Some 
l)lace  about  Hudson's  River  "  might  be  found  on  either  side  of  the  40th  de- 
gree of  N.  latitude,  the  boundary  between  Virginia  proper  and  those  ' '  north- 
ern parts  of  Virginia        hich  were  the  domain  of  the  Plymouth  Council. 


THE   '' MAYFLOWEK." 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST   YEAR    AT    PLYMOUTH.  323 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH. 

When  the  Pilgrim  Church  had  planted  itself  on  American 
soil,  there  was  no  certainty  that  it  could  live  through  the 
remainder  of  that  winter.  The  question  whether  they  could 
keep  together  under  the  distress  that  was  coming  upon  them 
might  have  been  considered  doubtful.  What  was  to  hinder 
them  from  quarreling,  as  hungry  men  are  prone  to  do?  If 
they  were  the  unintelligent  fanatics  which  they  are  some- 
times supposed  to  have  been,  what  was  to  hinder  them  from 
falling  into  anarchy?  What  reason  was  there  to  hope  that 
the  slight  bond  which  held  their  body  politic  together  would 
not  break  at  the  first  trial  of  its  strength  ?  The  character 
of  the  men  gives  the  answer  to  such  questions.  "After  they 
had  provided  a  place  for  their  goods  or  common  store,  and 
begun  some  small  cottages  for  their  habitation  as  time  would 
admit,  they  met  and  consulted  of  laws  and  orders  both  for 
their  civil  and  military  government  as  the  necessity  of  their 
condition  did  require."  The  members  of  the  nascent  com- 
monwealth were  not  all  from  Leyden,  nor  all. of  one  mind 
and  temper.  "  In  those  hard  and  diflScult  beginnings,"  there 
were  "discontents  and  murmurings  among  some,  and  muti- 
nous speeches  and  carriage  in  others ;  but  they  were  soon 
quelled  and  overcome  by  the  wisdom,  patience,  and  just  and 
equal  carriage  of  things  by  the  governor  and  better  part." 
Gradually  the  simple  democracy,  the  earliest  instance  of 
New  England  town-meeting  government,  was  proving  itself 
equal  to  the  need  of  the  little  republic. 

There  was  another  way  in  which  the  colony  might  be  an- 
nihilated. After  so  long  a  voyage  in  a  crowded  vessel,  with 
insuiRcient  accommodations  at  the  best,  and  such  food  as 


324  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND  CHURCHES.      [CH.  XVI. 

sea-farers  in  those  days  were  compelled  to  live  on,  and  after 
their  great  exposures  to  cold  and  rain,  many  of  them  could 
have  only  a  feeble  hold  on  life  ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  conceive 
how  there  could  be  one  in  whom  there  was  not  some  lurk- 
ing disease.  Six  of  the  passengers  died  while  the  ship  was 
lying  at  Cape  Cod.^  Almost  from  the  date  of  their  arrival 
in  Plymouth  harbor  they  were  wasting  away.  Bradford 
tells  the  sad  story  with  characteristic  simplicity:  "In  two 
or  three  months'  time  half  of  their  company  died,  .  .  .  being 
infected  with  the  scurvy  and  other  diseases  which  this  long- 
voyage  and  their  inaccommodate  condition  had  brought 
upon  them."  "There  died,  sometimes,  two  or  three  of  a 
day."  When  the  spring  opened  upon  them,  "  of  one  hun- 
dred persons,  scarce  fifty  remained."  ^  "  In  the  time  of  most 
distress,  there  were  but  six  or  seven  sound  persons,  who  (to 
their  great  commendation  be  it  spoken)  spared  no  pains 
night  or  day ;  but,  with  abundance  of  toil  and  hazard  of  their 
own  health,  fetched  them  wood,  made  them  fires,  dressed 
them  meat,  made  their  beds,  washed  their  loathsome  clothes, 
clothed  and  unclothed  them ;  in  a  word,  did  all  the  homely 
and  necessary  offices  for  them  which  dainty  and  queasy 
stomachs  can  not  endure  to  hear  named ;  and  all  this  will- 
ingly and  cheerfully,  without  any  grudging  in  the  least, 
showing  herein  their  true  love  to  their  friends  and  brethren. 
.  .  .  Two  of  these  seven  were  Mr.  William  Brewster,  their 
reverend  elder,  and  Miles  Standish,  their  captain  and  mili- 
tary commander ;  to  whom  myself  and  many  others  were 
much  beholden  in  our  low  and  sick  condition.  .  .  .  What  I 
have  said  of  these,  I  may  say  of  many  others  who  died  in 

-  One  of  the  six,  Mrs.  Bradford,  was  drowned.  The  others  may  be  re- 
garded as  having  died  of  the  privations,  hardships,  and  exposures  which  they 
had  suffered. 

2  More  exactly,  the  deaths  were :  in  December,  six ;  in  January,  eight ; 
in  February,  seventeen;  in  March,  thirteen — forty-four  in  four  months.  Be- 
fore the  arrival  of  the  first  reinforcement  the  number  of  the  dead  was  just 
fifty. 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH.  325 

this  general  visitation,  and  others  yet  living,  that  while  they 
had  health — yea,  or  any  strength  continuing — they  were  not 
wanting  to  any  that  had  need  of  them." 

Details  like  these,  illustrative  of  character  and  of  the  Chris- 
tian spirit,  are  always  pertinent  in  church  history.     For  the 
same  reason  we  must  not  omit  from  our  story  those  inci- 
dents which  show  how  wide  a  difference  in  moral  character 
and  human  sympathy  there  was  between  the  Pilgrims  and 
the  rough  sailors  of  the  Mayflo'wer.     Bradford  tells  us  that 
at  first  "  the  calamity  fell  among  the  passengers  that  were 
to  be  left  here  to  plant.     They  were  hastened  ashore  and 
made  to  drink  water  that  the  seamen  might  have  the  more 
beer."  ^     When  Bradford  himself,  "  in  his  sickness,  desired 
but  a  small  can  of  beer,"  he  was  harshly  denied.     But  soon 
the  hardier  and  more  favored  seamen  began  to  succumb  ; 
and  before  April  nearly  half  of  their  company  had  died. 
Master  Jones  was  "something  strucken"  when  his  own  men 
began  to  be  sick  and  to  die.     He  thought  more  kindly  of 
"  the  sick  ashore,"  and  told  the  governor  to  "  send  for  beer 
for  them  that  had  need  of  it,"  professing  himself  willing  to 
"  drink  water  homeward  bound"  rather  than  that  they  should 
suffer.    "  But  among  his  company  there  was  far  another  kind 
of  carriage  in  this  misery  than  among  the  passengers.     They 
that  before  had  been  boon  companions  in  drinking  and  jol- 
lity, began  now  to  desert  one  another,  saying  they  would 
not  hazard  their  lives  for  them— they  should  be  infected  by 
coming  to  help  them  in  their  cabins  ;   and  so,  after  they  be- 
gan to  die,  would  do  little  or  nothing  for  them.     Such  of 
the  passengers  as  were  yet  aboard  showed  them  what  mercy 
they  could,  which  made  some  of  their  hearts  relent."    The 
boatswain,  in  particular,  "a  proud  young  man,"  had  often 
cursed  the   passengers,  and  had   scoffed    at   them    (foolish 
Brownists,  pretending  to  be  saints)  ;   "  but  when  he  grew 

^  A  more  tonic  and  nutritious  drink  than  water  seemed  necessary  as  a  pre- 
ventive of  scurvy  and  similar  diseases  resulting  from  low  diet  and  the  loss  of 
vital  force. 


326         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

weak,  they  had  compassion  on  him  and  helped  him.  Then 
he  confessed  he  had  not  deserved  it  at  their  hands,  and  had 
abused  them  in  word  and  deed.  '  Oh  !'  saith  he, '  you,  I  now 
see,  show  your  love  like  Christians  indeed  one  to  another;  but 
we  let  one  another  lie  and  die  like  dogs.' "  Other  instances 
there  were  of  savage  selfishness,  which  not  even  the  sight  nor 
yet  the  experience  of  Christian  kindness  could  overcome. 

Along  with  the  epidemic,  which  was  sweeping  so  many 
into  graves  carefully  concealed,  there  was  the  growing  dan- 
<^er  of  an  attack  from  the  Indians — danofer  that  the  surviv- 
ing  Pilgrims  might  be  cut  off  all  at  once,  and  the  traces  of 
their  enterprise  be  obliterated.  It  was  almost  six  weeks  aft- 
er their  arrival  before  a  single  Indian  came  in  sight.  Then, 
in  a  cold  and  sleety  morning  (Jan.  31=:Feb.  10),  "  the  mas- 
ter and  others  saw  two  savages"  who  had  been  on  Clark's 
Island,  but  had  paddled  so  far  away  before  they  were  seen 
that  they  could  not  be  spoken  to.  A  few  days  later  one  of 
the  people,  w^atching  among  tall  reeds  by  a  creek  to  shoot 
water-fowl,  saw  twelve  Indians  marching  by  him  toward 
the  village,  and  at  the  same  time  heard  in  the  woods  the 
noise  of  many  more.  "  He  lay  close  till  they  were  passed ; 
and  then,  with  what  speed  he  could,  he  went  home  and  gave 
the  alarm."  The  few  who  were  dispersed  at  work  in  the 
woods,  of  whom  Miles  Standish  was  one,  returned  at  the 
alarm  and  armed  themselves ;  but  nothing  more  was  seen  of 
the  Indians,  save  that,  just  before  sunset,  they  made  a  great 
fire  near  the  place  where  they  were  discovered  ;  and  that 
some  of  them  stole  the  tools  which  Captain  Standish  and  an- 
other who  was  with  him  in  the  woods  had  left  when  they 
heard  the  call  to  arms.  "This  coming  of  the  savages,"  says 
the  Pilgrim  journal,  "gave  us  occasion  to  keep  more  strict 
watch,  and  to  make  our  pieces  and  furniture  ready,  which 
by  the  moisture  and  rain  were  out  of  temper." 

The  next  morning  they  held  a  legislative  meeting  to  put 
the  colony  into  readiness  for  any  mai-tial  enterprise.  Miles 
Standish — not  a  member  of  their  church,  but  an  experienced 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT    PLYMOUTH.  327 

and  valiant  soldier — was  chosen  captain,  and  formally  in- 
vested with  "  authority  of  command"  in  military  affairs.  But 
while  the  meetino-  was  in  deliberation  about  other  arran<re- 
ments  for  defense,  the  business  was  suddenly  interrupted. 
Two  savages  presented  themselves  on  the  top  of  a  neighbor- 
ing hill,  and  made  signs  which  were  understood  as  an  invi- 
tation to  come  to  them.  The  Pilgrims,  responding  with  a 
similar  invitation,  immediately  armed  themselves  and  stood 
ready.  Standish,  accompanied  by  Stephen  Hopkins,  who 
seems  to  have  had  some  military  experience,  went  over  the 
brook  to  hold  a  parley  with  the  strangers.  One  of  the  two 
carried  a  musket  part  of  the  way,  and  then  laid  it  on  the 
ground,  to  show  that  their  intention  was  peaceable.  But 
the  Indians  would  not  wait.  They  seemed  to  have  come  on 
a  reconnoissance ;  for  behind  the  hill  there  was  a  noise  as  if 
many  more  were  there.  It  was  evidently  time  to  have  their 
great  guns  in  position ;  and  that  part  of  the  work  was  has- 
tened forward.^ 

Slowly  the  terrible  winter  passed  away.  Milder  winds 
began  to  blow  from  the  south.  The  streams  were  no  longer 
bridged  with  ice ;  the  snows  were  disappearing  from  the 
hills;  "wai-m  and  fair  weather"  cheered  the  convalescent; 
"the  birds  sang  in  the  woods  most  pleasantly."  On  "a  fair, 
warm  day,"  soon  after  the  vernal  equinox  (March  16  =  26),  the 
survivors  were  again  assembled  to  complete  tlie  military  ar- 
rangements which  they  had  left  unfinished,  when  they  were 
again  interrupted  by  an  alarm.  A  savage  came  boldly  along 
their  little  street,  "  straight  to  the  rendezvous,"  where  their 
town-meeting  was  deliberating  on  the  means  of  defending 
the  settlement  against  hostile  visitors.  At  that  point  they 
came  out  to  meet  him,  "  not  suffering  him  to  go  in ;"  for 
they  were  naturally  unwilling  to  let  him  see  how  few  and 
weak  they  were.    To  their  surprise,  he  bade  them  "Welcome  !" 

'  The  authority  for  all  the  particulars  of  this  chapter  is  Bradford's  History, 
p.  01-116  ;  and  the  documents  in  Young,  p.  171-268. 


328         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

saluting  them  in  broken  English.  They  regarded  him  witli 
close  attention,  for  he  was  the  first  native  with  whom  they 
had  been  able  to  have  any  communication.  "He  was  a  tall, 
straight  man,  the  hair  of  his  head  black,  long  behind,  only 
short  before,  none  on  his  face  at  all ;"  and  his  costume  was 
very  much  as  if  he  had  just  come  out  of  the  primeval  para- 
dise'— "stark  naked,  only  a  leather  about  his  waist,  with  a 
fringe  about  a  span  long  or  little  more."  For  arms,  he  had 
only  a  bow  and  two  arrows,  one  of  them  headed.  They 
found  him  "free  in  speech,  so  far  as  he  could  express  his 
mind,  and  of  a  seemly  carriage."  Conversation  with  him 
could  not  be  very  free,  for  his  acquaintance  with  their  lan- 
guage was  only  such  as  he  had  gained  by  intercourse  with 
fishing  vessels  on  what  is  now  the  coast  of  Maine  ;  but 
they  "  questioned  him  of  many  things,"  and  "  he  discoursed  of 
the  whole  country,  and  of  every  province,  and  of  their  saga- 
mores, and  their  number  of  men  and  strength,"  giving  out, 
withal,  that  he  was  himself  a  sagamore,  though  he  had  been 
eight  months  absent  from  his  dominions.  The  chill  March 
wind  "beginning  to  rise  a  little,"  they  had  compassion  on  his 
shivering  nakedness,  and  "cast  a  horseman's  coat  about  him." 
He  had  not  learned  to  ask  for  whisky,  but  with  an  Indian's 
appetite  for  the  white  man's  drinks  he  asked  for  beer ;  and  as 
they  had  no  beer,  they  gave  him  some  of  their  precious  "  strong 
water,  and  biscuit  and  butter,  and  cheese,  and  pudding,  and 
a  piece  of  mallard,  all  which  he  liked  well,  ond  had  been  ac- 
quainted with  such  among  the  English."  From  him  they 
learned  that  the  place  where  they  were  was  called  Patuxet ; 
that,  about  four  years  before,  it  had  been  devastated  by  a  dis- 
ease which  had  left  "  neither  man,  woman,  nor  child  remain- 
ing," and  that  there  was  no  Indian  claim  to  the  soil  which 
they  had  begun  to  occupy.  They  learned  also  that  their 
next  neighbors  on  the  south  were  subject  to  a  chief  named 
Massasoit;  and  that  another  tribe  near  them  were  the  Nau- 

'  Gen.  iii.,  21. 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH.  329 

sites,  who  had  attacked  their  exploring  party,  and  who,  being 
"much  incensed  and  provoked  against  the  English,"  had  kill- 
ed three  Englishmen  only  a  few  months  ago.  They  found 
that  the  Indians  who  had  stolen  their  tools,  and  who  had 
been  lurking  about  them  with  various  indications  of  hostil- 
ity, were  Nausites,  whose  grudge  against  the  English  was 
not  without  cause.  ^ 

After  some  hours  of  such  conversation  as  they  could  hold 
with  him,  they  "  would  gladly  have  been  rid  of  him  ;"  for  not 
only  were  they  unwilling  to  let  him  see  how  few  and  weak 
they  w^ere,  but  they  knew  not  how  far  it  might  be  safe  to 
trust  him.  They  were  a  little  disconcerted  by  the  discovery 
that  he  thought  he  was  in  a  comfortable  place,  and  intended 
not  to  go  away  that  night.  It  was  then  proposed  that  he 
should  pass  the  night  on  shipboard,  and  he  consented ;  but 
the  wind  was  high  and  the  tide  low,  so  that  they  could  not 
send  him  to  the  ship.  Finding  that  he  was  not  to  be  got  rid 
of,  they  "lodged  him  that  night  at  Stephen  Hopkins's  house, 
and  watched  him." 

In  the  morning  (March  17=27)  they  dismissed  their  guest, 
giving  him  a  knife  for  use,  and  a  bracelet  and  a  ring  for  or- 
nament. On  his  part,  he  promised  that  "  within  a  night  or 
two"  he  would  come  again,  and  bring  to  them  some  of  their 
Indian  neighbors,  with  such  beaver  skins  as  they  had  to  sell. 
After  long  and  anxious  waiting,  they  had  at  last  a  hopeful 
prospect  of  amicable  intercourse  with  the  natives. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday ;   and,  true  to  his  word,  their 

1  "  These  people  are  ill  affected  toward  the  English  by  reason  of  one  Hunt, 
a  master  of  a  ship,  who  deceived  the  people,  and  got  them,  under  color  of 
trucking  with  them,  twenty  out  of  this  very  place  where  we  inhabit,  and 
seven  men  from  the  Nausites,  and  carried  them  away,  and  sold  them  for 
slaves,  like  a  wretched  man  that  cares  not  what  mischief  he  doth  for  his 
profit." — Mourt's  [Bradford  and  Winslow's]  "Relation,"  in  Young,  p.  186. 

Many  an  Indian  massacre  on  the  frontier  has  been  only  a  wild  and 
blind  vengeance  on  innocent  settlers  for  the  crimes  of  white  men  like  that 
Hunt. 


330        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

new  friend  Samoset  (for  that  was  his  name)  came  again,  and 
"brought  with  him  five  other  tall,  proper  men."  Such  a 
visit  on  that  day  was  hardly  desired  by  them,  for  it  was  a 
serious  interruption  of  their  Sabbath.  Certainly  the  visitors 
must  have  made  a  sensation  in  the  little  village.  They  were 
more  elaborately  dressed  than  Samoset  was  at  his  former 
visit.  Every  man  of  them  wore  a  deer-skin  for  his  outer  gar- 
ment ;  and  the  one  who  seemed  to  be  the  chief  among  them 
"had  a  wild-cat's  skin,  or  such  like,  on  one  arm."  Most  of 
them  wore  leggins,  or  "  long  hosen,"  of  leather,  reaching  to 
the  body  and  fastened  to  a  leathern  girdle.  Like  Samoset, 
they  wore  their  hair  long,  some  of  them  having  it  "  trussed 
up  with  a  feather,  broadwise,  like  a  fan,"  while  one  head  was 
adorned  with  the  pendent  tail  of  a  fox.  "Some  of  them  had 
their  faces  painted  black,  from  the  forehead  to  the  chin,  four 
or  five  fingers  broad ;  others,  after  other  fashions,  as  they 
liked."  Evidently  they  had  got  themselves  up  with  their 
best  apparel  and  in  their  most  impressive  style,  as  if  they 
knew  it  was  Sunday.  In  accordance  with  advice  given  to 
Samoset  at  his  first  visit,  they  had  left  their  bows  and  arrows 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  town,  thus  indicating  the  peace- 
ableness  of  their  intentions.  They  had  a  friendly  and  hospi- 
table welcome,  the  more  friendly  because  they  brought  back 
the  tools  that  had  been  stolen.  In  the  words  of  the  Pilgrim 
narrative,  "They  did  eat  liberally  of  our  English  victuals. 
They  made  semblance  to  us  of  friendship  and  amity.  They 
sang  and  danced  after  their  manner,  like  antics."  A  strange 
Sabbath  it  was  in  the  Pilgrim  settlement,  for  the  duty  of 
hospitality  and  kindness  to  heathen  neighbors  was  recog- 
nized as  more  important  in  that  instance  than  Puritan  strict- 
ness of  Sabbath-keeping.  But  when  the  Indians  produced 
their  beaver  skins  and  wanted  to  make  a  bargain,  they  were 
made  to  understand  that  among  those  new  neighbors  of 
theirs  that  day  of  the  week  was  not  a  day  for  trade.  They 
were  not  offended  by  the  refusal  to  trade  on  that  day,  but 
promised  to  come  again  "  within  a  night  or  two."     So  they 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH.  331 

were  dismissed,  each  witli  some  little  present,  as  soon  as  they 
could  be  sent  away  without  offense.  They  were  accompanied 
by  an  armed  escort  to  the  place  where  they  had  deposit- 
ed their  own  weapons ;  and  thence,  glad  and  with  many 
thanks,  they  went  their  way,  repeating  their  promise  to  come 
again. 

But  Samoset,  as  before,  was  not  easily  dismissed.  Under 
pretense  of  sickness,  or  perhaps  really  ill,  he  remained  at 
Plymouth  till  Wednesday  morning ;  when  the  Englishmen, 
having  fitted  him  out  with  "  a  hat,  a  pair  of  stockings,  and 
shoes,  a  shirt,  and  a  piece  of  cloth  to  tie  about  his  waist," 
sent  him  as  their  messenger  to  ascertain  why  his  friends  had 
not  come  back  according  to  their  promise. 

Meanwhile,  in  those  bright,  warm  days  of  advancing  spring, 
they  were  digging  their  grounds  and  planting  the  garden 
seeds  they  had  brought  from  England;  though  they  were 
not  yet  quite  sure  that  their  relations  with  their  wild  neigh- 
bors would  be  peaceful.  On  the  very  day  on  which  they 
sent  away  the  reluctant  Samoset,  they  saw,  on  the  hill-top 
over  against  them,  two  or  three  savages  whose  gestures 
seemed  to  intimate  hostility  and  defiance,  and  who,  when 
they  were  approached,  betook  themselves  to  flight.  But  on 
Thursday — "  a  very  fair,  warm  day" — while  they  were  again 
in  deliberation  on  their  public  afiairs  (March  22=  April  1), 
Samoset  came  the  third  time,  and  four  others  with  him. 
One  of  the.  four  was  Squanto,  the  sole  survivor  of  the  tribe 
that  had  lately  inhabited  Patuxet.  He,  too,  could  speak  a 
little  English,  and  could  speak  it  better  than  Samoset,  for  he 
was  one  of  twenty  that  were  kidnapped  by  Hunt  seven  years 
before,  and  sold  for  slaves  in  Spain.  In  some  way  he  had  pass- 
ed from  Spain  into  England.  There  he  had  "  dwelt  in  Corn- 
hill  with  Master  John  Slainie,"  a  London  merchant,  who,  be- 
ing interested  in  fishing  voyages  on  the  New  England  coast, 
had  sent  him  over  to  be  useful  as  an  interpreter.  But  his 
knowledge  of  English,  added  to  Samoset's,  was  not  much. 
They  succeeded,  however,  in  communicating  the  information 


332         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

"  that  their  great  sagamore,  Massasoit,^  was  hard  by,  with 
Quadequina,his  brother,  and  all  their  men."  About  an  horn- 
later  the  royal  personage  thus  heralded  made  his  appearance, 
with  sixty  followers,  on  the  hill-top  beyond  the  brook.  On 
each  side  thei-e  was  something  of  suspicion  :  "  We  were  not 
willing  to  send  our  governor  to  them,  and  they  were  unwill- 
ing to  come  to  us."  Squanto,  the  more  intelligent  of  the 
two  interpreters,  was  sent  to  make  arrangements  for  an  inter- 
view. He  brought  back  a  request  from  Massasoit  for  a  par- 
ley with  some  authorized  messenger.  Winslow  was  there- 
fore sent  to  negotiate  with  the  savage  chief,  "  to  know  his 
mind,  and  to  signify  the  mind  and  will  of  the  governor." 
He  carried  with  him  conciliatory  presents  from  the  white 
men — "  to  the  king  a  pair  of  knives,  and  a  copper  chain  with 
a  jewel  at  it ;  to  Quadequina  a  knife,  and  a  jewel  to  hang  in 
his  ear ;"  also,  "  a  pot  of  strong  water,  a  good  quantity  of  bis- 
cuit, and  some  butter."  By  those  little  gifts  out  of  their  pov- 
erty, the  Pilgrims  expressed  their  friendliness.  "  A  man's  gift 
maketh  room  for  him,  and  bringeth  him  before  great  men."^ 
With  no  other  attendance  than  the  two  interpreters,  but 
not  without  his  sword  and  his  defensive  armor,  Winslow 
passed  over  the  brook,  went  up  the  hill,  and,  the  gifts  mak- 
ing room  for  him,  he  stood  before  the  great  men  in  the  crowd 
of  their  warriors.  He  saluted  Massasoit,  in  the  name  of 
King  James,  "  with  words  of  love  and  peace,"  and  informed 
him  that  Governor  Carver  "desired  to  see  him  and  to  truck 
with  him,  and  to  confirm  a  peace  with  him  as  his  next  neigh- 
bor." Before  making  any  definite  answer,  the  king  refreshed 
himself  from  the  biscuit  and  butter  and  the  strong  water,  and 
gave  to  his  followers  what  remained  after  he  was  satisfied. 
He  intimated  a  desire  to  trade  for  Winslow's  sword  and  ar- 
mor, but  was  informed  that  those  precious  things  were  not 

'  This  name  is  sometimes  written  by  Bradford  "  Massasoyet ;"  and  Prince 
says  :  "I find  the  ancient  people  from  their  fathers  in  Plymouth  colony  pro- 
nounce his  name  Ma-sas-so-it. " — "Annals,"  p.  187. 

^  Prov.  xviii.,  16. 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST   YEAR   AT    PLYMOUTH.  333 

for  sale.  After  a  while,  his  confidence  had  been  so  far  gained 
that  he  ventured  over  the  brook  with  about  twenty  of  his 
men,  all  leaving  their  bows  and  arrows  behind  them,  while 
Winslow  remained  with  Quadequina  as  a  hostage.  Some 
pomp  was  displayed  in  the  reception  of  the  king.  Standish 
and  Allerton  met  him  at  the  brook,  and  with  a  guard  of  hon- 
or conducted  him  to  an  unfinished  house,  where  a  green  rug 
had  been  spread,  and  a  few  cushions  laid.  Then  came  the 
governor,  "  with  drum  and  trumpet  after  him,  and  some  few 
musketeers."  After  ceremonious  salutations,  the  governor 
kissing  the  king's  hand,  and  receiving  a  kiss  from  royalty  in 
return  (neither  of  which  could  have  been  very  agreeable), 
the  two  sat  down  together,  as  for  business.  It  was  a  sight 
to  be  remembered,  and  vividly  was  it  described  by  some  who 
were  there. 

Massasoit  was  at  that  time  in  the  prime  of  life,  a  stalwart 
man, "  grave  of  countenance  and  spare  of  speech."  A  "  chain 
of  white  bone  beads  about  his  neck"  was  the  principal  orna- 
ment that  distinguished  him  from  his  followers,  and  from 
that  necklace  there  was  suspended  a  little  pouch  of  tobacco. 
"His  face  was  painted  with  a  sad  red,"  and  head  and  face 
were  oiled,  "  that  he  looked  greasily."  His  followers,  too — 
all  strong,  tall  men  —  wore  paint  on  their  faces  in  similar 
style,  "  some  black,  some  red,  some  yellow,  and  some  white, 
some  with  crosses  and  other  antic  works."  It  was  a  pictur- 
esque congress  in  that  rude  council-house  :  on  one  side.  Car- 
ver, Bradford,  Standish,  Allerton,  and — gravest  and  stateliest 
among  them — their  revered  elder,  Brewster ;  on  the  other 
side  those  painted  wild  men,  some  clad  in  skins  of  wild 
beasts  and  some  naked. 

The  Pilgrims  had  not  yet  learned  the  fatal  influence  of 
strong  drink  over  the  Indians.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  for 
Carver,  in  dealing  with  his  royal  visitor  on  so  important  an 
occasion,  to  perform,  without  scruple  or  reserve,  the  ritual  of 
hospitality.  He  "called  for  some  strong  water,  and  drank 
to  him ;"  and  the  savage  responded  with  "  a  great  draught 


334         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEAV    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

that  made  him  sweat  all  the  while  after."  He  also  "  called 
for  a  little  fresh  meat" — a  luxurious  banquet  in  that  first 
year  of  life  at  Plymouth — "  which  the  king  did  eat  willingly, 
and  did  give  his  followers."  Eating  and  drinking  together, 
especially  as  guest  and  host,  is  recognized  as  always  a  nat- 
ural symbol  of  friendly  relations;  and  with  that  symbol  the 
great  business  of  the  day  was  begun.  A  treaty  was  then 
and  there  concluded,  which  remained  unbroken  for  more  than 
fifty  years,  and  under  which  the  intercourse  between  the  two 
communities,  the  civilized  and  the  savage,  was  entirely  ami- 
cable.^ At  the  close,  Massasoit  lighted  a  pipe  filled  with 
tobacco  from  his  pouch,  and,  after  a  solemn  whift'  or  two, 
passed  it  to  Carver  and  the  other  white  chiefs,  who  accepted 
what  they  probably  supposed  to  be  nothing  more  than  an 
act  of  courtesy  on  his  part.  They  had  never  heard  of  the 
Indian's  pipe  of  peace,  and  knew  not  that  by  those  few  whiffs 
of  tobacco-smoke  the  treaty  Avas  ratified,  and  became  to  the 
king  and  his  people  a  sacred  compact. 

'  An  abstract  of  that  unwritten  treaty  was  incorporated  into  the  Journal 
of  the  Pilgrims,  published  in  London  the  next  year,  and  was  copied  almost 
without  change  into  Bradford's  History  twenty-four  years  later : 

"1.  That  neither  he  nor  any  of  his  should  injure  or  do  hurt  to  any  of  our 
people. 

"2.  And  if  any  of  his  did  hurt  to  any  of  ours,  he  should  send  the  offend- 
er that  we  might  punish  him. 

"3.  That  if  any  of  our  tools  were  taken  away,  when  our  people  were  at 
work  [or  if  any  thing  were  taken  away  from  any  of  ours],  he  should  cause 
it  to  be  restored ;  and  if  ours  did  any  harm  to  any  of  his,  we  should  do  the 
like  to  them. 

"4.  If  any  did  unjustly  war  against  him,  we  would  aid  him  ;  if  any  did 
war  against  us,  he  should  aid  us. 

"5.  He  should  send  to  his  neighbor  confederates  to  certify  them  of  this, 
that  they  might  not  wrong  us,  but  might  be  likewise  comprised  in  the  con- 
ditions of  peace. 

"6.  That  when  their  men  came  to  us,  they  should  leave  their  bows  and 
arrows  behind  them,  as  we  should  do  our  pieces  when  we  came  to  them. 

"Lastly,  That  doing  thus.  King  .James  would  esteem  of  him  as  his  friend 
and  ally." 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT    PLYMOUTH.  335 

When  all  was  done  the  governor  accompanied  his  visitor 
to  the  brook,  where  they  parted,  a  few  of  the  Indians  being 
still  detained  as  hostages  for  Winslow's  safety.  Then  fol- 
lowed a  visit  from  Quadequiua,"and  a  troop  with  him,"  who 
had  not  yet  seen  the  white  men's  village.  The  king's  broth- 
er "  was  a  very  proper,  tall  young  man,  of  a  very  modest 
and  seemly  countenance;"  and  though  so  much  afraid  of  the 
fire-arras  that,  to  relieve  his  mind,  they  were  put  out  of  sight, 
he  was  much  pleased  with  his  reception.  When  he  went 
over  the  brook,  there  was  the  formal  exchange  of  hostages. 
Two  of  his  men  proposed  to  remain  through  the  night,  but 
were  not  permitted  ;  for  the  confidence  of  the  Pilgrims  in 
their  new  friends  was  not  perfect.  "That  night,"  says  their 
journal, "  we  kept  good  watch  ;  but  there  was  no  appearance 
of  danger." 

Even  the  friendship  of  Indian  neighbors  is  not  in  every 
respect  desirable.  The  king  and  all  his  men,  and  their 
squaws  with  them,  had  encamped  in  the  woods  not  more 
than  half  a  mile  off;  and  the  next  morning  "divers  of  their 
people"  were  in  Plymouth  again,  evidently  "hoping  to  get 
some  victuals."  They  said  that  the  king  would  be  pleased 
with  a  visit  from  some  of  the  white  men.  Standish  and  Al- 
lerton  "  went  venturously,"  and  were  hospitably  entertained 
with  "three  or  four  ground-nuts  and  some  tobacco."  Mean- 
while the  Indian  visitors  at  Plymouth  were  making  them- 
selves familiar,  and  "stayed  till  ten  or  eleven  of  the  clock," 
but  were  at  last  got  rid  of  by  the  governor's  sending  for  the 
king's  kettle  and  filling  it  with  pease  for  them  to  carry  home, 
"  and  so  they  went  their  way."  On  the  whole,  the  Pilgrims, 
weak  and  impoverished  as  they  were,  could  not  have  been 
very  much  gratified  with  the  promise  of  their  allies  "  that 
within  eight  or  nine  days  they  would  come  and  set  corn  on 
the  other  side  of  the  brook,  and  dwell  there  all  summer." 
At  the  best,  it  was  as  if  they  were  to  have  in  their  imme- 
diate neighborhood,  through  the  summer,  a  great  encamp- 
ment of  gypsies,  trucking,  begging,  stealing,  and  committing 


336        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

all  sorts  of  trespasses.  Happily  for  both  parties,  the  promise 
was  not  kept. 

The  Pilgrims  were  beginning  to  understand  thei.  neigh- 
bors ;  but  they  were  not  on  that  account  disposed  to  relax 
their  preparations  for  self-defense.  As  the  new  year  (accord- 
ing to  the  ancient  calendar)  was  about  to  open  (March  23:= 
April  2),  they  completed  their  "  military  orders,"  and  ordain- 
ed some  other  laws  which  seemed  necessary  in  their  "  pres- 
ent estate  and  condition."  At  the  same  time  they  renewed 
their  choice  of  Carver  as  governor  of  the  colony  —  their 
sole  magistrate,  with  indefinite  powers,  but  continually  re- 
sponsible to  "  the  whole  company."  Within  a  week  from 
that  day  there  was  occasion  for  them  to  demonstrate  the  fact 
that  they  had  a  government.  John  Billington,  a  profane 
and  worthless  fellow,  who  came  from  London,  and  had  been 
"  shuffled  into  their  company,"  perhaps  by  "  friends "  who 
thought  that  he  might  be  made  better  by  transportation, 
seems  to  have  had  a  violent  dislike  of  Captain  Miles  Standish, 
and  to  have  uttered  in  "opprobious  speeches"  his  "contempt 
of  the  captain's  lawful  commands."  Thereupon  he  was  "  con- 
vented  before  the  whole  company  ;"  and  for  his  offense  he 
was  sentenced  "to  have  his  neck  and  heels  tied  together." 
It  was  beginning  to  be  manifest  that  the  government  must  be 
respected,  that  the  "military  orders"  were  not  to  be  trifled 
with,  and  that  Captain  Miles  Standish  was  the  lawful  com- 
mander of  a  force  sufficient  for  the  punishment  of  evil-doers. 
John  Billington,  therefore,  upon  hearing  the  sentence, "hum- 
bled himself  and  craved  pardon  ;"  and,  as  this  was  the  first 
offense  since  the  arrival  in  New  England,  the  penalty  was  re- 
mitted. 

All  this  while  the  3Iayfloiver  had  been  lying  in  the  harbor. 
Carver  and  the  others  had  judged  it  unwise  to  send  her  away 
in  midwinter,  while  the  colony,  daily  growing  weaker  by 
sickness  and  death,  might  be  destroyed  any  day  by  a  sudden 
attack  from  the  Indians.  Jones,  too,  the  master  of  the  ship, 
though  at  first  impatient  of  delay,  became  afraid  to  encoun- 


Qui 


lllll^ 


iiiimiiiiiiiiiililliiiiiiiili^ 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH.  337 

ter  the  perils  of  a  winter  voyage  while  the  survivors  of  his 
crew  were  slowly  recovering  from  the  sickness  of  which  so 
many  had  died.  But  when  the  spring  had  come,  when  a  trea- 
ty had  been  made  with  the  neighboring  Indians,  and  when 
all  practicable  arrangements  for  the  defense  and  the  con- 
tinued life  of  the  colony  had  been  completed,  "they  began 
to  dispatch  the  ship  away  which  brought  them  over;"  and 
about  the  middle  of  April,  as  we  measure  the  months  (April 
5  =  15),  she  sailed  for  England.  It  was  a  new  trial  to  be 
left — only  about  fifty  of  them,  men,  women,  and  children — in 
that  almost  boundless  solitude ;  and,  doubtless, it  was  through 
their  tears  that  they  saw  her  sail  lessening  till  it  became  a 
.dim  speck  in  the  horizon.  But  the  thought  of  what  they 
had  suffered  in  their  great  undertaking,  and  of  the  graves 
which  they  had  dug  through  the  snow  into  the  frozen  earth 
— the  thought  of  the  love  and  hope  that  were  lingering  at 
Leyden,  and  of  the  prayers  which  brethren  in  England  were 
offering  for  their  success,  would  not  permit  them  to  retreat 
from  the  position  they  had  gained  at  so  great  a  cost.  Not 
one  returned  in  the  Mayflower — though  why  John  Billington 
and  some  others  of  the  same  sort  did  not  return  has  never 
been  explained. 

It  was  now  time  for  planting.  All  the  force  of  the  colony 
must  be  turned  in  that  direction ;  for  Plymouth  was  to  be 
not  merely  a  trading  station  (which  might  have  been  satis- 
factory to  the  Adventurers  in  London),  but  a  permanent 
abode  of  civilization,  a  place  attractive  to  Christian  families, 
a  refuge  for  the  church  of  God.  Bradford  and  others  of  the 
company  had  practiced  in  their  youth  "  the  innocent  trade 
of  husbandry  ;"  but  during  the  twelve  years  of  their  pilgrim- 
age in  Holland  they  had  been  employed  in  the  various  in- 
dustries of  a  manufacturing  city.  What  would  their  almost 
forgotten  skill  in  husbandry  be  worth  on  a  soil  which,  till 
then,  had  never  been  furrowed,  and  under  a  climate  of  which 
they  knew  indeed  how  cold  it  was  in  winter,  but  knew  not 
as  yet  what  might  be  the  vicissitudes  of  the  seed-time,  the 


338  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.      [CH.  XVI. 

summer,  and  the  harvest.  "  Some  English  seed  they  sowed, 
as  wheat  and  pease,  but  it  came  not  to  good,  either  by  the 
badness  of  the  seed,  or  the  lateness  of  the  season,  or  both, 
or  by  some  other  defect."  Fortunately — rather  let  us  say, 
wisely — they  sowed  only  six  acres  with  the  exotic  "  wheat 
and  pease,"  while  they  planted  twenty  acres  with  the  native 
grain,  which  they  knew  had  flourished  there  through  untold 
ages.  In  the  planting  of  those  twenty  acres,  they  had  Squan- 
to's  Indian  lore  to  guide  their  English  inexperience.  He 
taught  them  how  to  plant  the  corn  in  hills,  how  to  manure 
it  with  fish,  and  how  to  dress  and  tend  it.  At  the  same 
time,  be  initiated  them  into  his  ancestral  methods  of  taking- 
fish,  for,  strangely  enough,  their  outfit  at  Southampton  had 
not  included  a  supply  of"  small  hooks."  He  told  them  also 
how  soon  their  brook  would  be  alive  with  herring,  and 
"where  they  might  get  other  provisions  necessary  for  them." 
Grievously  as  he  had  been  wronged  by  Englishmen,  he  had 
learned  to  "  discern  between  the  righteous  and  the  wicked." 
So  lonsc  as  he  lived,  he  was  to  these  Ens-lishmen  a  faithful 
friend. 

While  they  were  thus  busy  with  their  planting,  their  gov- 
ernor, on  one  of  those  hot  days  which  sometimes  vary  so 
suddenly  the  temperature  of  a  New  England  spring,  came 
in  from  the  field,  complaining  as  if  he  had  suffered  a  sun- 
stroke. He  lay  down,  soon  became  unconscious  and  speech- 
less, and  in  a  few  days  he  died.  "  This  worthy  gentleman," 
says  the  church  record,  in  affectionate  commemoration,  "was 
one  of  singular  piety,  and  rare  for  humility — which  appeared, 
as  otherwise,  so  by  his  great  condescendency.  When  as 
this  miserable  people  were  in  great  sickness,  he  shunned  not 
to  do  very  mean  services  for  them — yea,  the  meanest  of  them. 
He  bare  a  share  likewise  of  their  labor  in  his  own  person, 
according  as  their  great  necessity  required.  Who  being  one 
also  of  a  considerable  estate,  spent  the  main  part  of  it  in  this 
enterprise,  and  from  first  to  last  approved  himself  not  only 
as  their  asjent  in  the  first  transactino:  of  thino;s,  but  also  all 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH.  339 

along  to  the  period  of  his  life,  to  be  a  pious,  faithful,  and 
very  beneficial  instrument.  He  deceased  in  the  month  of 
April,  in  the  year  1621,  and  is  now  reaping  the  fruit  of  his 
labor  with  the  Lord."  ^  Little  more  is  known  of  him  than  that, 
after  Robinson  and  Brewster,  there  was  no  man  among  the 
Pilgrims  so  honored  and  beloved,  or  so  much  the  author  and 
leader  of  their  great  enterprise,  as  he.  "  Devout  men  car- 
ried him  to  his  burial,  and  made  great  lamentation  over  him." 
Feeble  as  they  were,  the  funeral  was  not  without  some  mili- 
tary pomp.  "He  was  buried  in  the  best  manner  they  could, 
with  some  volleys  of  shot  by  all  that  bore  arms."  His  wife, 
"a  weak  woman,"  had  lived  through  many  hardships  and 
sufferings  with  him,  but  it  soon  appeared  that  she  could  not 
live  without  him.  In  five  or  six  weeks  after  his  death  her 
weary  pilgrimage  was  ended. 

No  arrangement  had  been  made  in  anticipation  of  such  an 
event  as  the  death  of  the  governor.  The  little  common- 
wealth was  left  without  a  magistrate ;  but  the  vacancy  was 
soon  filled.  William  Bradford  was  chosen  governor,  "  and 
being  not  yet  recovered  of  his  illness,  in  which  he  had  been 
near  the  point  of  death,  Isaac  Allerton  was  chosen  to  be  an 
assistant  unto  him."  On  that  occasion,  the  ofiice  of  assist- 
ant—  thenceforth  a  permanent  ofiice  —  had  it§  beginning. 
The  organization  of  the  state  was  slowly  developed  as  new 
arrangements  became  necessary ;  and  already  it  was  felt  that 
there  was  no  one  man  on  whose  life  the  continued  existence 
of  the  colony  depended.  But  for  the  death  of  Carver,  his 
brethren  might  have  thought  that  their  colony  could  not 
live  without  him  for  governor. 

As  yet  there  had  never  been  a  Christian  wedding  on  the 
soil  of  New  England ;  and,  but  for  the  breaking  up  of  fam- 
ilies in  the  mortality  of  the  first  winter,  there  might  have 

'  The  quotation  from  the  record  of  the  church  in  Plymouth  is  found  in 
Young,  p.  200.  It  seems  to  imply  that  Carver's  social  position  from  his 
birth  was  somewhat  higher  than  that  of  the  plain  husbandmen  who  dwelt 
near  Scrooby,  and  that  he  had  never  been  accustomed  to  any  manual  labor. 


340         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.      [CH.  XVI. 

been  none  till  some  of  the  children  brought  over  in  the  May- 
flower had  become  old  enough  to  marry.  Edward  Winslow's 
wife,  Elizabeth,  died  in  that  mortality,  and  his  house  was  left 
to  him  desolate.  William  White,  one  of  the  chief  men  in 
the  colony,  had  died  before  her;  and  his  widow,  Susanna, 
was  left  with  two  little  boys  to  care  for  (one  of  them  an  in- 
fant, born  w^hile  the  3Iayflower  was  lying  at  Cape  Cod);  and 
with  neither  man-servant  nor  maid-servant  to  help  her,  for 
they  had  died  also.  It  can  not  be  thought  strange,  when  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  are  considered,  that,  at  an  early 
day,  Edward  Winslow  and  Susanna  White  were  married. 
At  that  time,  and  long  afterward,  there  could  be  no  lawful 
marriage  in  England  without  sacerdotal  intervention  and  the 
use  of  ceremonies  which  Puritan  scrupulousness  denounced 
as  superstitious.  By  the  compromises  of  the  Anglican  Ref- 
ormation, marriage  had  ceased  to  be  in  name  a  sacrament, 
without  being  distinctly  recognized  as  any  thing  either  less 
or  greater  than  a  sacrament.  In  Holland,  the  Pilgrims  had 
seen  what  is  now  called  civil  marriage ;  and  by  that  method 
they  had  themselves  (many  of  them)  been  joined  in  holy 
wedlock.  There  the  law  was  "  that  those  of  any  religion, 
after  lawful  and  open  publication,  coming  before  the  magis- 
trates in  the  town-house,  or  stadt-house,  were  to  be  by  them 
orderly  married,  one  to  another."  Accordingly,  the  first 
wedding  in  the  Pilgrim  colony  was  an  open  contempt  of  the 
canon  law  maintained  in  England ;  and,  to  that  extent,  it 
was  an  informal  declaration  of  independence.  In  conformity 
with  "  the  laudable  custom  of  the  Low  Countries  in  which 
they  had  lived,"  marriage  "  was  thought  most  requisite  to 
be  performed  by  the  magistrate,  as  being  a  civil  thing  upon 
which  many  questions  about  inheritances  do  depend,"  and 
which  for  other  reasons  comes  properly  under  the  cognizance 
of  the  state — a  thing,  too,  which  is  "nowhere  found  in  the 
Gospel  to  be  laid  upon  ministers  as  a  part  of  their  office." 
Therefore  as  Adam  and  Eve,  in  the  beginning  of  the  world, 
were  married  without  any  priestly  intervention — as   Boaz 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT    PLYMOUTH.  341 

took  Ruth,  the  Moabite  widow,  to  be  his  wife,  before  the  eld- 
ers of  Bethlehem — so  Edward  Winslow  and  Susanna  White, 
before  the  magistrate.  Governor  Bradford,  and  with  public 
solemnities,  entered  into  the  sacred  covenant  of  marriage. 
Nor  was  theirs  a  godless  wedding.  Acknowledging  God  in 
all  their  ways,  they  acknowledged  him  especially  in  that 
momentous  act.  They  married  "  in  the  Lord,"  ^  and  the 
church,  we  need  not  doubt,  invoked  a  blessing  on  their 
union.  Thus,  in  the  first  New  England  wedding,  a  prece- 
dent was  given  which  has  never  yet  been  set  aside,  and 
which  marked  clearly  the  distinction  between  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  civil  power  in  "  causes  matrimonial "  and  the  le- 
gitimate jurisdiction  of  the  church. 

The  first  offense  in  the  colony  had  been  pardoned,  after 
conviction  and  sentence,  because  it  was  the  first,  and  because 
the  culprit's  acknowledgment  of  his  fault  and  his  submis- 
sion to  the  authority  which  he  had  reviled  were  deemed  suf- 
ficient for  the  ends  of  justice.  But  the  next  offense  was  of 
a  more  serious  character.  Stephen  Hopkins  had  brought 
with  him  two  servants — probably  minors  bound  to  service 
for  a  term  of  years.  Between  those  two  there  was  a  quarrel, 
a  challenge  given  and  accepted,  and  a  fight  with  swords  and 
da^orers — the  first  duel  in  New  Enojland.  The  wounds  which 
they  inflicted  on  each  other  were  not  thought  to  be  an  ade- 
quate punishment,  and  the  parties  were  "adjudged  by  the 
whole  company  to  have  their  head  and  feet  tied  together, 
and  so  to  lie  for  twenty-four  hours,  without  meat  or  drink." 
It  seems  that  the  judicial  power,  as  well  as  the  legislative, 
was  exercised  by  "  the  whole  company."  The  sentence  was 
partly  executed,  but  before  one  hour  had  passed  the  pain 
which  the  criminals  were  sufflering  was  so  great  that  they 
were  released  by  the  governor  "  at  their  own  and  their  mas- 
ter's humble  request,  upon  promise  of  better  carriage." 

Among  the  incidents  of  the  year  was  the  sending  of  an 


1  Cor.  vii.,39. 


342         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

embassy  from  Plymouth  to  Pokanoket,  "  the  habitation  of 
the  great  king  Massasoit."  The  friendly  visits  of  hungry 
and  curious  natives  had  become  so  frequent  as  to  be  trouble- 
some; and  it  was  necessary  to  have  some  new  regulations 
and  a  mutual  understanding  on  that  subject.  It  was  im- 
portant not  only  to  make  farther  exploration  of  the  country, 
but  also  to  know  where  the  Indians  might  be  found  in  any 
emergency  requiring  communication  with  them.  As  Massa- 
soit and  his  warriors,  by  their  visit,  had  become  acquainted 
with  the  weakness  of  the  settlement  as  well  as  with  its 
means  of  defense,  it  was  thought  that  a  deputation  sent  to 
return  their  visit  would  see  the  strength  of  those  wild  and 
uncertain  allies.  There  was,  at  the  same  time,  a  desire  to 
make  satisfaction  for  some  injuries  which  the  Pilgrims  thought 
they  had  done  to  Indians  they  knew  not  who.  But  the  main 
and  comprehensive  purpose  of  the  mission  was  "  to  continue 
the  league  of  peace  and  friendship,"  which  might  at  any  mo- 
ment be  broken  by  misunderstanding  or  jealousy.  Winslow 
and  Hopkins  were  appointed  by  the  governor  to  represent 
him  at  the  court  of  Massasoit.  Squanto  went  with  them, 
dragoman  to  the  legation.  "  That  both  they  and  their  mes- 
sage might  be  more  acceptable,"  they  were  to  be  the  bearers 
of  a  present  for  the  king — "a  horseman's  coat  of  red  cotton, 
laced  with  a  slight  lace." 

The  message  which  they  were  to  deliver  from  the  govern- 
or at  Plymouth  to  the  king  jit  Pokanoket  was  in  these 
words :  "  That  forasmuch  as  his  subjects  came  often  and 
without  fear  upon  all  occasions  among  us,  so  w^e  were  now 
come  unto  him,  and,  in  witness  of  the  love  and  good-will  the 
English  bear  unto  him,  the  governor  hath  sent  him  a  coat, 
desiring  that  the  peace  and  amity  that  was  between  them 
and  us  might  be  continued ;  not  that  we  feared  them,  but 
because  we  intended  not  to  injure  any,  desiring  to  live  peace- 
ably as  with  all  men,  so  especially  with  them  our  nearest 
neighbors.  But  whereas  his  people  came  very  often  and 
very  many  together  unto  us,  bringing  for  the  most  part  their 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH.  343 

wives  and  children  with  them,  they  M^ere  welcome ;  yet,  we 
being  but  strangers  as  yet  at  Patuxet,  and  not  knowing  how 
our  corn  might  prosper,  we  could  no  longer  give  them  such 
entertainment  as  we  had  done  and  as  we  desired  still  to  do. 
Yet  if  he  would  be  pleased  to  come  himself,  or  if  any  special 
friend  of  his  desired  to  see  us,  coming  from  him  they  should 
be  welcome.  And  to  the  end  we  might  know  them  from 
others,  our  governor  had  sent  him  a  copper  chain,  desiring  if 
any  messenger  should  come  from  him  to  us  we  might  know 
him  by  [his]  bringing  it  with  him,  and  hearken  and  give 
credit  to  his  message  accordingly.  [Our  governor]  also  re- 
quested him  that  such  as  have  skins  should  bring  them  to 
us,  and  that  he  would  hinder  the  multitude  from  oppressing 
us  with  them.  And  whereas,  at  our  first  arrival  at  Paoraet, 
called  by  us  Cape  Cod,  we  found  there  corn  buried  in  the 
ground,  and  finding  no  inhabitants,  but  some  graves  of  dead 
new-buried,  took  the  corn,  resolving,  if  ever  we  could  hear 
of  any  that  had  right  thereto,  to  make  satisfaction  to  the 
full  for  it;  yet,  since  we  understand  the  owners  thereof  were 
fled  for  fear  of  us,  our  desire  was  either  to  pay  them  with 
the  like  quantity  of  corn,  English  meal,  or  any  other  com- 
modities we  had  to  pleasure  them  withal ;  requesting  him 
that  some  one  of  his  men  might  signify  so  much  unto  them, 
and  we  wonld  content  him  for  his  pains.  And,  last  of  all,  our 
governor  requested  one  favor  of  him,  wliich  was  that  he  would 
exchange  some  of  their  corn  for  seed  with  us,  that  we  might 
make  trial  which  best  agreed  with  the  soil  where  we  live." 

With  this  message  and  the  presents,  Winslow  and  Hop- 
kins, on  one  of  the  long  days  in  the  hottest  part  of  a  New 
England  summer  (July  2  =  12),  set  forth,  the  friendly  Squanto 
guiding  them  through  the  wilderness.  Leaving  Plymouth 
Monday  morning,  and  passing  the  first  night  "  in  the  open 
fields,"  they  arrived  the  next  day  (July  3  =  13),  after  various 
adventures,  at  the  royal  residence,  about  forty  miles  from 
Plymouth.  The  king,  though  not  at  home,  was  near  enough 
to  be  sent  for,  and  to  come  with  no  great  loss  of  time  on 


344        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

their  part.  At  his  return  they  gave  him,  as  Squanto  had  re- 
quested, a  military  salute  by  discharging  their  pieces.  He, 
after  the  Indian  fashion,  kindly  welcomed  them,  took  them 
into  his  house,  and  set  them  down  by  him.  Then,  having 
delivered  their  message  and  the  presents,  they  put  the  red 
cotton  coat  on  his  back  and  the  copper  chain  about  his  neck, 
and  had  the  satisfaction  of  observing  that  "  he  was  not  a  lit- 
tle proud  to  behold  himself — and  his  men  also  to  see  their 
king — so  bravely  attired." 

The  king's  answer,  on  all  points  save  one,  was  promptly 
given.  "  He  told  us  we  were  welcome,  and  he  would  gladly 
continue  that  peace  and  friendship  which  was  betw^een  him 
and  us;  and,  for  his  men,  they  should  no  more  pester  us  as 
they  had  done ;  also,  he  w^ould  send  to  Paomet,  and  would 
help  us  with  corn  for  seed,  according  to  our  request."  But 
in  respect  to  the  trade  in  beaver  and  other  skins,  he  seemed 
to  feel  that  more  formality  was  necessary  to  the  validity  of 
the  answer.  He  made  "  a  great  speech "  to  his  men  who 
gathered  near  him,  "  they  sometimes  interposing,  and,  as  it 
were,  confirming  and  applauding  him."  For  each  of  thirty 
places  which  he  claimed,  one  after  another,  as  his  own,  using 
the  same  form  of  words,  they  responded  in  a  similar  formula. 
It  was  his,  and  they  would  be  at  peace  with  the  Englishmen, 
and  would  bring  their  skins  to  Plymouth.  Satisfactory  as 
these  affirmations  were,  the  repetition  of  the  same  words 
thirty  times  could  not  but  seem  tedious  to  the  weary  and 
hungry  embassadors. 

They  were  hungry  as  well  as  weary,  for,  of  the  provision 
for  their  journey,  they  had  imparted  freely  to  the  Indians 
near  w^hose  camp  they  passed  the  preceding  night,  not 
doubting  that  they  would  have  enough  wherever  they  might 
come ;  and  though  they  "  broke  their  fast "  very  well  in  the 
morning,  they  had  traveled  all  day  without  finding  much  to 
eat.  The  pipe  of  peace,  which  was  solemnly  circulated  at 
the  close  of  the  formal  conference,  was  a  very  inadequate 
substitute  for  food.     Massasoit,  with  the  aid  of  Squanto,  talk- 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH.  345 

ed  about  England  and  King  James,  also  about  the  French- 
men, who,  to  his  disgust,  had  intruded  into  Narraganset  Bay, 
but  he  said  nothing  about  supper.  "Late  it  grew,  but  vict- 
uals he  offered  none ;  for  indeed  he  had  not  any,  being  he 
came  so  newly  home."  So  the  embassadors  sought  such  ref- 
uge from  hunger  as  sleep  might  give  them.  "  On  hospitable 
thoughts  intent,"  the  king  shared  his  own  couch  with  them 
— he  and  his  wife  at  one  end  of  the  long,  low  platform,  they 
at  the  other.  Then,  as  if  that  accommodation  were  not 
scanty  enough,  they  found  "  two  more  of  his  chief  men " 
crowding  in  with  them  for  want  of  room  elsewhere.  They 
might  well  say,  "We  were  worse  weary  of  our  lodging  than 
of  our  journey." 

Morning  came  at  last  (July  4  =  14),  but  no  breakfast. 
There  was  a  fresh  throng  of  petty  chiefs  and  other  Indians, 
attracted  to  see  the  strangers,  but  using  the  opportunity  to 
play  "their  manner  of  games" — whether  of  chance  or  of 
skill — "for  skins  and  knives."  So  the  long  summer  morn- 
ing wore  away,  and  about  an  hour  after  noon  "  Massasoit 
brought  two  fishes  that  he  had  shot"  with  arrows.  The 
fish  were  large,  and  good  for  food ;  but  what  were  they 
among  so  many?  At  least  forty,  when  the  fish  were  boiled, 
"  looked  for  share  in  them,"  and  few  of  the  forty  failed  of 
getting  something.  "  This  meal  only,"  said  Winslow,  "  we 
had  in  two  nights  and  a  day ;  and  had  not  one  of  us  bought 
a  partridge,  we  had  taken  our  journey  fasting."  The  king 
was  "very  importunate"  to  have  them  stay  longer;  and 
why  they  declined  his  urgent  invitation,  Winslow  tells  us: 
"  We  desired  to  keep  the  Sabbath  at  home,  and  feared  we 
should  be  light-headed  for  want  of  sleep  ;  for  what  with  bad 
lodging,  the  savages'  barbarous  singing  (for  they  use  to 
sing  themselves  asleep),  lice  and  fleas  within  doors,  and  mos- 
quitoes without,  we  could  hardly  sleep  all  the  time  of  our 
being  there ;  we  much  feared  that  if  we  should  stay  any 
longer,  we  should  not  be  able  to  recover  home  for  want 
of  strength.     So,  on  the  Friday  morning  (July  6  =  16),  before 


346         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

sunrising,  we  took  our  leave  and  departed,  Massasoit  being 
both  grieved  and  ashamed  that  he  could  no  better  entertain 
us."  Through  that  day  they  suffered  from  want  of  food,  be- 
ing able  to  purchase  from  Indians  on  the  way  only  "a  little 
fish "  and  a  handful  of  their  parched  corn,  pulverized  by 
pounding.  But  at  night  they  obtained  "good  store  offish" 
— enough  for  supper  and  for  their  breakfast  on  Saturday. 
Drenched  in  rain,  which  began  to  come  down  like  a  deluge 
in  the  night  and  continued  all  the  next  day,  they  pressed 
forward,  and  "  came  safe  home  that  [Saturday]  night,"  thank- 
ful, "  though  wet  and  weary." 

Their  own  report  abounds  in  picturesque  details  both  of 
their  personal  adventures  and  of  their  observations  on  the 
country  through  which  they  passed — at  that  time  a  pathless 
wilderness,  almost  emptied  even  of  its  wild  inhabitants — now 
"  a  delightsome  land,"  studded  with  towns  and  villages,  hal- 
lowed with  temples  of  intelligent  and  spiritual  worship, 
adorned  with  homesteads  perched  on  the  hillsides  or  nestling 
in  the  valleys,  and  abounding  in  the  wealth  created  by  the 
industry  of  Christian  civilization.  But  the  historian  of  Plym- 
outh colony  gives  the  results  of  their  embassy  in  a  few 
words:  "They  found  but  short  commons,  and  came  both 
weary  and  hungry  home.  For  the  Indians  used  then  to  have 
nothing  so  much  corn  as  they  have  since  the  English  have 
stored  them  with  their  hoes,  and  seen  their  industry  in  break- 
ing up  new  grounds  therewith.  They  found  Massasoit's 
place  to  be  forty  milefe  from  hence,  the  soil  good  and  the 
people  not  many,  being  dead  and  abundantly  wasted  in  the 
late  mortality  which  fell  in  all  these  parts,  about  three  years 
before  the  coming  of  the  English,  and  in  which  thousands  of 
them  died.  They  not  being  able  to  bury  one  another,  their 
skulls  and  bones  were  found  in  many  places,  lying  still  above 
ground  where  their  houses  and  dwellings  had  been — a  very 
sad  spectacle  to  behold.  But  they  brought  word  that  the 
Narragansets  lived  but  on  the  other  side  of  that  great  bay, 
and  were  a  strong  people  and  many  in  number,  living  com- 


A. D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT    PLYMOUTH.  347 

pact  together,  and  had  not  been   at  all  touched  with  this 
wasting  plague." 

An  intense  feeling  of  loneliness  must  have  been  habitual 
with  those  surviving  exiles — so  few,  and  so  cut  off  from  com- 
munication with  the  civilized  world.  Seven  months  since 
they  sailed  from  the  old  English  Plymouth  —  months  how 
full  of  suffering  and  sorrow!  —  had  passed  when  the  May- 
floioer  left  them  in  their  solitude.  Month  after  month  was 
passing,  the  year  was  completing  its  round ;  and  all  the 
while  they  had  not  one  word  from  Leyden  or  from  England. 
The  summer  gave  them  busy  employment,  not  only  with 
their  corn-field  and  gardens,  and  with  the  building  of  their 
cottages  in  preparation  for  another  winter,  but  also  with  va- 
rious excursions  for  exploration  and  for  opening  trade  with 
the  natives.  An  unlucky  boy,  one  of  the  Billingtons  (July), 
strayed  into  the  woods,  and  wandered,  famishing,  till  he 
came  to  a  village  of  Indians,  twenty  miles  away,  who  sent 
him  to  a  still  greater  distance.  This  gave  occasion  for  an 
expedition  of  ten  men  in  the  shallop  to  the  Nausites,  the 
tribe  who  attacked  the  exploring  party  when  the  Mayflower 
was  lying  at  Cape  Cod.  Finding  a  harbor  for  the  first  night 
at  Cummaquid  (now  Barnstable),  they  encountered  there  an 
aged  woman,  who  came  to  see  them  because  she  had  never 
seen  an  Englishman,  yet,  when  she  saw  them,  "  broke  forth 
into  great  passion,  weeping  and  crying  excessively."  Her 
story  was  "  very  grievous"  to  them.  Seven  years  before,' 
an  Englishman  seized  and  carried  off  in  his  vessel  her  three 
sons,  "  by  which  means  she  was  deprived  of  the  comfort  of 
her  children  in  her  old  age."  They  assured  her  that  all  good 
Englishmen  abhorred  the  man  who  robbed  her  of  her  sons ; 
and,  in  token  of  their  sympathy,  they  gave  her  some  little 
presents  to  appease  her  grief  Touching  next  at  Nauset 
(now  Eastham),  they  were  in  the  midst  of  the  savages  whose 
arrows,  flying  around  them,  gave  them  so  great  an  alarm  a 

^  Ante,  p.  329. 


348        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

few  months  before.^  Yet  they  succeeded,  not  only  in  recov- 
ering the  boy,  "  behung  with  beads,"  2  but  also  in  gaining  the 
confidence  of  that  tribe.  Nor  did  they  neglect  the  oppor- 
tunity of  making  full  satisfaction  for  the  corn  which,  in  their 
necessity,  when  the  winter  was  upon  them  in  the  wilderness, 
they  had  taken  from  Indian  granaries,  and  for  the  owners  of 
which  they  had  already  made  inquiry.  Of  a  military  expe- 
dition, sent  forth  (Aug.  13  =  23)  when  a  report  came  that 
Squanto  had  been  killed  because  he  was  their  friend;  and 
of  a  more  peaceful  expedition  (Sept.  18  =  28)  which  explored 
the  harbor  where  Boston  now  is,  and  which  resulted  in 
opening  commercial  intercourse  with  the  natives  there,  we 
need  not  tell  the  story.  While  some  were  thus  employed  in 
affairs  abroad,  others  were  busy  in  fishing ;  and  by  that  in- 
dustry were  endeavoring  to  provide  for  every  family  a  sup- 
ply against  the  winter.  Their  own  historian  says,  with  un- 
affected acknowledgment  of  the  divine  Providence  over  them, 
"They  found  the  Lord  to  be  with  them  in  all  their  ways, 
and  to  bless  their  outgoings  and  incomings;  for  which  let 
his  holy  name  have  the  praise  forever." 

"All  summer  there  was  no  want."  In  due  time  the  har- 
vest was  gathered.  They  had  "  a  good  increase  of  Indian 
corn  ;"  their  barley  was  "  indifferent  good  ;"  but  their  pease, 
that  came  up  well  and  blossomed  hopefully,  were  "  not  worth 
the  gathering."  Meanwhile  their  harbor  was  beginning  to 
show  how  successful  the  w^ild  ducks  had  been  with  their 
broods,  "and  now  began  to  come  in  store  of  fowl"  as  the 
autumn  advanced;  and,  besides  water-fowl,  there  was  "great 
store  of  wild  turkeys  "  in  the  woods,  as  well  as  venison.  Then 
they  had  what  they  might  have  called,  in  Scriptural  phrase, 
"the  feast  of  ingathering."  Winslow,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend, 
tells  how  they  kept  it.  "  Our  governor  sent  four  men  on 
fowling,  so  that  we  might,  after  a  special  manner,  rejoice  to- 

'  ^wfg,  p.  314, 315. 

^  Already  the  Nausites  had  begun  to  make  an  Indian  of  him.  Boys  and 
men  of  the  Billington  sort  are  easily  converted  into  savages. 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT    PLYMOUTH.  349 

gether  after  we  had  gathered  the  fruit  of  our  labors.  They 
four  in  one  day  killed  as  much  fowl  as,  with  a  little  help  be- 
sides, served  the  company  almost  a  week.  At  which  time, 
among  other  recreations,  we  exercised  our  arms,  many  of  the 
Indians  coming  among  us,  and  among  the  rest  Massasoit, 
with  some  ninety  men,  whom  for  three  days  we  entertained 
and  feasted."  The  Indian  guests  "  went  out  and  killed  five 
deer,  which  they  brought  to  the  plantation,  and  bestowed  on 
our  governor  and  upon  the  captain  and  others."  It  is  not 
altogether  fanciful  to  call  that  three-days'  feast  "  the  first 
Thanksgiving."  The  New  England  autumnal  feast,  now 
kept  with  gladness  in  the  homes  and  with  worship  in  the 
churches,  all  the  way  from  Plymouth  to  the  Golden  Gate,  be- 
gan spontaneously  when  the  Pilgrim  remnant  had  harvested 
their  first  crop  of  Indian  corn. 

Not  many  days  later,  the  governor  was  startled  by  a  mes- 
sage from  the  now  friendly  Nausites,  that  they  had  seen  what 
they  supposed  to  be  a  French  ship  (Nov.  9  =  19)  putting  in 
at  the  harbor  where  the  Mayflower  dropped  her  anchor  just 
a  year  before.  While  he  was  wondering  what  such  an  ar- 
rival might  portend,  the  unknown  vessel  was  seen  approach- 
ing. Instantly  "  he  commanded  a  great  piece  to  be  shot  ofi', 
to  call  home  such  as  were  abroad  at  work.  Thereupon,"  as 
Winslow  wrote  to  his  friend,  "  every  man,  yea  boy,  that  could 
handle  a  gun,  was  ready,  with  full  resolution  that,  if  she 
were  an  enemy,  we  would  stand  in  our  just  defense,  not  fear- 
ing them."  But  as  soon  as  she  came  near  enough  for  them 
to  see  what  flag  she  bore,  there  was  no  need  of  guns  save 
for  a  joyful  welcome.  She  was  the  Fortune^  from  London,  a 
small  vessel,  sent  out  by  the  Adventurers,  and  bringing  a  re- 
inforcement to  the  colony.  Cushman  came  in  her,  and  thir- 
ty-five others,  including  some  at  least  of  those  who  had  been 
left  behind  when  the  Speedicell  failed.  But  these  new-com- 
ers were  not  all  such  as  Bradford  and  Brewster  would  have 
chosen.  ''Many  of  them  were  wild  enough" — unthinking 
young  men — who  had  been  picked  up  without  carefulness, 


350        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.      [CH.  XVI. 

and  persuaded  to  enlist  in  an  enterprise  which  they  could 
not  appreciate,  and  who  had  been  sent  without  any  detinite 
notion  of  whither  they  were  going  or  wherefore.  So  little 
did  the  Adventurers  in  London  realize  what  kind  of  a  work 
it  was  which  they  had  undertaken,  or  what  was  necessary 
to  its  success.  The  reinforcement  had  been  sent  without 
any  reasonable  outfit.  Instead  of  bringing  supplies  of  food 
that  might  help  them  to  live  through  the  winter,  they  were 
so  many  more  mouths  to  be  fed  out  of  the  scanty  store  of  the 
colony  till  another  harvest.  Even  the  ship  that  brought 
theai  needed  to  be  provisioned  for  her  return  voyage.  Nor 
were  the  new  emigrants  well  supplied  with  other  necessa- 
ries.^ "  The  plantation  was  glad  of  this  addition  of  strength, 
but  could  have  wished  that  many  of  them  had  been  of  bet- 
ter condition,  and  all  of  them  better  furnished  with  provis- 
ions." 

The  Fortufie  had  not  sailed  from  London  till  two  months 
after  the  arrival  of  the  Mayfloioer  with  intelligence  of  all 
that  had  befallen  the  Pilgrims  on  their  long  voyage  and 
through  the  sorrowful  winter.  She  brought  letters  from 
Leyden  as  well  as  from  the  mother  country.  A  business  let- 
ter from  Weston  to  Governor  Carver  was  "  full  of  complaints 
and  expostulations  about  former  passages  at  Southampton, 
and  the  keeping  the  ship  so  long  in  the  country,  and  return- 
ing her  without  lading."  Some  expressions  in  that  letter  were 
characteristic  of  the  writer's  unfeeling  selfishness:  "That 
you  sent  no  lading  in  the  ship  is  wonderful,  and  worthily 
distasted.  I  know  your  weakness  was  the  cause  of  it,  and,  I 
believe,  more  weakness  of  judgment  than  weakness  of  hands. 
A  quarter  of  the  time  you  spent  in  discoursing,  arguing,  and 

^  "  There  was  not  so  much  as  biscuit-cake  or  any  other  victuals  for  them ; 
neither  had  they  any  bedding  but  some  sorry  things  they  had  in  their  cabins, 
nor  pot  nor  pan  to  dress  their  meat  in  ;  nor  over-many  clothes,  for  many  of 
them  had  brushed  away  their  coats  and  cloaks  at  I'lymouth  as  they  came. 
But  there  was  sent  over  some  Burchin-lane  suits  [cheap  ready-made  cloth- 
ing], out  of  which  they  were  supplied." — Bradford,  p.  106. 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH.  351 

consulting  would  have  done  mucli  more;  but  that  is  past." 
At  the  same  time,  he  did  not  forget  to  make  fresh  promises, 
conditioned  upon  early  and  profitable  returns:  "Consider 
that  the  life  of  the  business  depends  on  the  lading  of  this 
ship,  which  if  you  do  to  any  good  purpose,  that  I  may  be 
freed  from  the  great  sums  I  have  disbursed  for  the  former 
and  must  do  for  the  latter,  I  promise  you  I  will  never  quit 
the  business  though  all  the  other  Adventurers  should."  In 
other  words,  the  cry  of  their  friend  Thomas  Weston  from  the 
other  side  of  the  ocean  was— Send  fish,  send  beaver,  send 
something  that  I  can  turn  into  money  at  a  good  profit,  and 
I  will  stand  by  you;  but  unless  you  make  my  adventure  a 
gainful  one,  you  are  weak  in  judgment,  and  good  for  nothing 
but  to  waste  time  in  discoursing,  arguing,  and  consulting. 

Of  other  letters  that  came  by  the  Fortune^  only  one  has 
been  preserved,  an  official  letter  from  Robinson  to  the  church. 
It  was  in  these  words : 

"  To  the  Church  of  God  at  Plymouth^  hi  JVew  England : 

"Much  beloved  Brethren,  —  Neither  the  distance  of 
place  nor  distinction  of  body  can  at  all  either  dissolve  or 
weaken  that  bond  of  true  Christian  affection  in  which  the 
Lord,  by  his  Spirit, hath  tied  us  together.  My  continual  pray- 
ers are  to  the  Lord  for  you ;  my  most  earnest  desire  is  unto 
you,  from  whom  I  will  not  longer  keep  (if  God  will)  than  [till] 
means  can  be  procured  to  bring  with  me  the  wives  and  chil- 
dren of  divers  of  you,  and  the  rest  of  your  brethren,  whom 
I  could  not  leave  behind  me  without  great  injury  both  to  you 
and  them,  and  offense  to  God  and  all  men.  The  death  of 
so  many,  our  dear  friends  and  brethren,  oh  !  how  grievous 
liath  it  been  to  you  to  bear,  and  to  us  to  take  knowledge  of; 
which,  if  it  could  be  mended  with  lamenting,  could  not  suf- 
ficiently be  bewailed.  But  we  must  go  unto  them,  and  they 
shall  not  return  unto  us.  And  how  many  even  of  us  God 
hath  taken  away,  here  and  in  England,  since  your  departure, 
you  mav  elsewhere  take  knowledge.     But  tlie  same  God  has 

A  A 


352        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVT. 

tempered  judgment  with  mercy — as  otherwise,  so  in  sparing 
the  rest,  especially  those  by  whose  godly  and  wise  govern- 
ment you  may  be  and  (I  know)  are  so  much  helped.^  In  a 
battle,  it  is  not  looked  for  but  that  divers  should  die ;  it  is 
thought  w^ell  for  a  side  if  it  get  the  victory,  though  with  the 
loss  of  divers,  if  not  too  many  or  too  great,  God,  I  hope, 
hath  given  you  the  victory,  after  many  difficulties,  for  your- 
selves and  others ;  though  I  doubt  not  but  many  do  and  will 
remain  for  you  and  us  all  to  strive  with. 

"Brethren,!  hope  I  need  not  exhort  you  to  obedience  unto 
those  whom  God  hath  set  over  you  in  church  and  common- 
wealth, and  to  the  Lord  in  them.  It  is  a  Christian's  honor 
to  give  honor  according  to  men's  places  ;  and  his  liberty  to 
serve  God  in  faith  and  his  brethren  in  love,  orderly,  and  with 
a  willing  and  free  heart.  God  forbid  I  should  need  to  ex- 
hort you  to  peace,  which  is  the  bond  of  perfection,  and  by 
which  all  good  is  tied  together,  and  without  which  it  is  scat- 
tered. Have  peace  with  God  first,  by  faith  in  his  promises, 
good  conscience  kept  in  all  things,  and  oft  renewed  by  re- 
pentance ;  and  so  one  with  another  for  His  sake  who  is  though 
three  one,  and  for  Christ's  sake  who  is  one,  and  as  you  are 
called  by  one  Spirit  to  one  hope.  And  the  God  of  peace 
and  grace  and  all  goodness  be  with  you,  in  all  the  fruits 
thereof,  plenteously,  upon  your  heads,  now  and  forever. 

"All  your  brethren  here  remember  you  with  great  love, 
a  general  token  whereof  they  have  sent  you. 

"  Yours,  ever  in  the  Lord,  John  Robinson. 

"Leyden,  Holland,  June  30,  anno  1621." 

As  a  communication  to  the  church  from  its  pastor,  the  let- 
ter would  naturally  be  read  in  the  public  assembly  for  wor- 
ship. Such  assemblies  the  church  had  "  every  Sabbath,"  as 
those  who  came  by  the  Fortune  reported  to  their  friends  in 


'  Robinson,  when  he  wrote  this  letter  (preserved  in  Bradford's  Letter- 
Book),  did  not  know  that  Carver  was  among  the  dead. 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST   YEAR    AT    PLYMOUTH.  353 

England ;  and,  though  the  pastor  was  still  so  far  away,  the 
congregation  was  not  therefore  without  the  preaching  of  the 
Word.^  That  "  exercise  of  prophesying  "  for  which  Robin- 
son contended  2  against  those  who  held  that  preaching  is  ex- 
clusively the  function  of  men  ordained  to  govern  in  the 
church,  was  kept  up  at  Plymouth.  A  sermon  that  was  de- 
livered by  Robert  Cushman  on  one  of  the  three  or  four  Sab- 
baths that  occurred  while  the  Fortune  was  taking  in  her  re- 
turn cargo,  was  soon  afterward  printed  in  England,  and  it  is 
the  only  extant  specimen  of  the  preaching  which  the  Pil- 
grims listened  to.  If  all  the  sermons  which  they  heard  in 
those  early  times  were  like  Cushman's  "  On  the  sin  and  dan- 
ger of  self-love,"  from  the  text,  "  Let  no  man  seek  his  own, 
but  every  man  another's  wealth,"  they  had  no  lack  of  practi- 
cal preaching.^  Their  church,  in  its  Sabbath  assemblies,  was 
a  school  of  mutual  instruction  and  edification.  However 
they  might  miss  their  pastor's  discourses,  so  rich  in  doctrine, 
and  so  illustrated  with  various  learning,  they  did  not  neg- 
lect the  assembling  of  themselves  together,  nor  cease  to  help 
each  other  in  the  application  of  Christian  principles  and  mo- 
tives to  the  exigencies  of  their  condition. 

The  Fortune  sailed  homeward  on  or  soon  after  the  first  an- 
niversary of  the  landing  at  Plymouth  (Dec.  11=:21).     Brief 

'  "William  Hilton,  who,  in  1G23,  became  one  of  the  first  settlers  of  Do- 
ver, in  New  Hampshire,  was  a  passenger  by  the  Fortune.  lie,  in  a  letter 
written  soon  after  his  arrival,  described  the  moral  and  religious  aspect  of 
Plymouth  in  these  words :  "  Our  company  are,  for  most  part,  very  religious, 
honest  people  ;  the  word  of  God  [is]  sincerely  taught  us  every  Sabbath." 

=^  Ante,  p.  239. 

^  The  sermon — or  so  much  of  it  as  seemed  to  be  of  historic  value — is  found 
in  Young,  p.  2r)6-2ri8.  Felt's  "Ecclesiastical  History  of  N.  E."  (i.,  67)  calls 
the  author  of  it  "  Elder  Cushman."  Thomas  Cushman,  son  of  Robert,  was 
chosen  ruling  elder  after  Brewster's  death ;  but  Robert  seems  never  to  have 
held  any  office  in  the  church.  It  is  worth  remembering  that  the  first  print- 
ed American  sermon  was  preached  against  selfishness,  applying  Christian 
principles  and  motives  to  stimulate  public  spirit ;  and  that  a  non-profes- 
sional preacher — an  active  business  man — was  the  author  of  it. 


354         GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

as  her  stay  liad  been,  she  sailed  with  a  freiglit  of  lumber 
and  of  beaver  and  other  peltry,  valued  at  "near  five  hundred 
pounds  sterling."  Cushman,  having  come  out  as  a  special 
agent  for  the  Adventurers,  went  back  to  make  his  report, 
carrying  with  him  the  manuscript  of  his  sermon.  At  last, 
yielding  to  his  persuasion  and  to  advice  from  Leyden,  the 
colonists  had  accepted  the  hard  conditions  which  they  would 
not  accept  while  in  England,  and  it  was  now  expected  that 
the  enterprise  in  which  they  had  invested  their  all  would  be 
carried  forward  with  more  effectual  co-operation  from  the 
Adventurers,  and  especially  from  Weston,  who  had  promised 
so  much.  If  we  had,  to-day,  the  entire  contents  of  the  For- 
tune's letter-bag  on  her  return  voyage,  they  would  be  deemed 
worth  more  than  their  weight  in  gold.  Governor  Brad- 
ford's reply  to  Weston's  harsh  "  complaints  and  expostula- 
tions" was  among  those  letters,  and  is  a  beautiful  example 
of  Christian  dignity  in  rebuke.  "Your  large  letter  written 
to  Mr.  Carver,"  said  the  Pilgrim  governor,  "  I  have  received, 
.  .  .  wherein  (after  the  apology  made  for  yourself)  you  lay 
many  heavy  imjDutations  upon  him  and  us  all.  Touching 
him,  he  is  departed  this  life,  and  is  now  at  rest  in  the  Lord 
from  all  those  troubles  and  incumbrances  with  which'  we  are 
yet  to  strive.  He  needs  not  my  apology;  for  his  care  and 
pains  was  so  great  for  the  common  good,  both  ours  and 
yours,  as  that  therewith  (it  is  thought)  he  oppressed  himself 
and  shortened  his  days.  .  .  .  At  great  charges  in  this  advent- 
ure, I  confess  you  have  been,  and  many  losses  may  sustain ; 
but  the  loss  of  his  and  many  other  honest  and  industrious 
men's  lives  can  not  be  valued  at  any  price.  Of  the  one, 
there  may  be  hope  of  recovery ;  but  the  other  no  recompense 
can  make  good." 

The  letter  adverted  to  the  blame  which  Weston  imputed 
to  them  "  for  keeping  the  ship  so  long  in  the  country,  and 
then  sending  her  away  empty."  It  described,  in  a  few  tell- 
ing phrases,  the  events  and  circumstances  which  made  the 
detention  of  the  Mayflover  inevitable  :  their  "  seeking  out  in 


A.D.  1621.]  THE    FIRST    YEAR    AT   PLYMOUTH.  055 

the  foul  winter  a  place  of  habitation,"  "  with  many  a  weary 
step  and  the  endurance  of  many  a  hard  brunt;"  their  work 
"in  so  tedious  a  time"  to  provide  shelter  for  themselves 
and  their  goods,  a  work  so  severe,  and  involving  such  expo- 
sures, that  many  of  them  were  still  bearing  in  their  bodies 
the  marks  of  it ;  the  visitation  of  God  upon  them  "  with 
death  daily,  and  with  so  general  a  disease  that  the  living 
were  scarce  able  to  bury  the  dead,  and  the  well  not  in  any 
measure  sufficient  to  tend  the  sick  " — particulars  which  Wes- 
ton already  knew  before  he  wrote  his  insulting  complaints. 
"And  now,"  said  the  governor,  "  to  be  so  greatly  blamed  for 
not  freighting  the  ship,  doth  indeed  go  near  us,  and  much 
discourage  us.  But  you  say  you  know  we  will  pretend  weak- 
ness. And  do  you  think  we  had  not  cause  ?  Yes,  you  tell 
us  you  believe  it,  but  it  was  more  weakness  of  judgment 
than  of  hands.  Our  weakness  herein  is  great,  we  confess ; 
therefore  we  will  bear  this  check  patiently  among  the  rest, 
till  God  send  us  wiser  men."  Then  —  touching  upon  the 
cruel  charge  that  they  had  wasted  "  in  discoursing,  arguing, 
and  consulting"  the  time  in  which  they  might  have  been  at 
work  for  their  masters  the  Adventurers — the  pen  struck  fire, 
and  the  meek  spirit  of  the  Pilgrim  blazed  out  in  righteous 
indignation.  Intimating  that  he  knew  or  strongly  suspect- 
ed whence  the  slander  came,  he  said,  with  evident  allusion 
to  some  of  those  w^ho  did  not  come  from  Leyden,  but  had 
been  shuffled  into  their  company  in  England:  "They  who 
told  you,  .  .  .  their  hearts  can  tell  their  tongues  they  lie. 
They  cared  not,  so  they  might  salve  their  own  sores,  how 
they  wounded  others.  Indeed,  it  is  our  calamity  that  we  are 
(beyond  expectation)  yoked  with  some  ill-conditioned  peo- 
ple, who  will  never  do  good,  but  corrupt  and  abuse  others." 
The  remainder  of  the  letter  was  occupied  with  matters  of 
business  between  the  Adventurers  and  the  colony.  Among 
other  things,  it  insisted  on  the  necessity  of  sending  a  time- 
ly supply  of  provisions,  because  otherwise  the  reinforcement 
"  would  bring  famine  on  them  unavoidably."     It  closed  with 


356         GEIS^ESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVI. 

the  hope  that,  inasmuch  as  the  controversy  about  the  condi- 
tions of  their  partnership  had  been  terminated  by  the  submis- 
sion of  the  Planters  to  the  demands  of  the  Adventurers,  of- 
fenses would  be  forgotten,  and  Weston  would  remember  his 
promise  to  stand  by  them. 

As  soon  as  the  Fortune  had  been  supplied  with  food  for 
her  voyage  and  dispatched  homeward,  the  thirty-five  "new- 
comers "  were  distributed  into  families,  and  a  careful  inven- 
tory was  made  of  the  provisions  remaining  for  the  sustenance 
of  the  colony.  It  was  found  that,  with  the  increased  num- 
ber of  consumers,  there  was  only  half  a  supply  for  six  months. 
"  So  they  were  presently  put  to  half  allowance,  one  as  well 
as  another — which  began  to  be  hard ;  but  they  bore  it  pa- 
tiently under  hope  of  supply." 

The  winter  solstice  had  passed ;  the  days  were  beginning 
to  lengthen ;  a  year  had  been  completed  since  they  "  began 
to  erect  the  first  house  for  common  use"  (Dec.  25=3 Jan.  4). 
One  incident  of  that  anniversary  is  narrated  by  Bradford  as 
"rather  of  mirth  than  of  weight."  The  story,  in  his  quaint 
words,  is  too  picturesque,  and  too  characteristic  of  the  Pil- 
grims, their  governor,  and  the  "  new-comers,"  to  be  lost :  "  On 
the  day  called  Christmas-day,  the  governor  called  them  out 
to  work,  as  was  used  ;  but  the  most  of  this  new  company  ex- 
cused themselves,  and  said  it  went  against  their  consciences 
to  work  on  that  day.  So  the  governor  told  them  that,  if  they 
made  it  matter  of  conscience,  he  would  spare  them  till  they 
were  better  informed.  So  he  led  away  the  rest  and  left 
them ;  but  when  they  came  home  at  noon  from  their  work, 
he  found  them  in  the  street  at  play,  openly — some  pitching 
the  bar,  and  some  at  stool-ball,  and  such  like  sports.  So  he 
went  to  them  and  took  away  their  implements,  and  told  them 
that  was  against  his  conscience,  that  they  should  play  and 
others  work.  If  they  made  the  keeping  of  it  matter  of  de- 
votion, let  them  keep  their  houses ;  but  there  should  be  no 
gaming  or  reveling  in  the  streets.  Since  which  time  nothing 
hath  been  attempted  that  way,  at  least  openly." 


A.D.  1622.]  ADVEKSITY    AJSD   PKOGliESS.  357 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

ADVEKSITY   AND    PROGRESS. WESTON's    COLONY,   AND    WHAT 

CAME    OF    IT. 

The  second  year  of  the  colony  at  Plymouth,  and  the  third, 
brought  no  such  sorrow  as  that  of  the  first  winter.  Yet 
they  were  years  of  peril  and  of  sufiering. 

While  the  Pilgrims  were  on  good  terms  with  their  neigh- 
bor Massasoit,  and  with  all  the  Indians  under  his  authority, 
they  had  not  been  able  to  enter  into  similar  relations  with 
Canonicus,  the  sachem  of  a  much  more  powerful  nation.  The 
Narragansets,  inhabiting  nearly  all  the  territory  now  in- 
cluded in  the  State  of  Rhode  Island,  are  supposed  to  have 
been  at  that  time  about  thirty  thousand,  for  they  had  been 
strangely  spared  by  the  pestilence  which  had  wasted  other 
tribes.  It  was  natural  for  them  to  be  jealous  of  the  advan- 
tages which  their  neighbors  under  Massasoit  were  likely  to 
gain  from  alliance  and  intercourse  with  the  English ;  and  it 
began  to  be  reported  that  they  were  preparing  for  an  attack 
on  Plymouth.  They  knew,  indeed,  that  the  colony  had  been 
reinforced,  but  they  knew  also  that  the  men  who  came  by  the 
Fortune  had  brought  neither  arms  nor  provisions. 

After  not  many  days,  there  came  into  the  village  a  mes- 
senger from  the  Narragansets  (Jan.,  1622),  whose  message 
Governor  Bradford  and  Assistant  Allerton,  in  the  absence  of 
their  interpreter,  were  able  to  understand  only  in  part.  He 
brought  a  bundle  of  new  arrows  tied  up  in  a  rattlesnake's 
skin,  and,  having  intimated  that  the  suspicious  gift  was  for 
Squanto,  he  "  desired  to  depart  with  all  expedition."  From 
a  friendly  and  faithful  Indian  who  was  with  him,  they  could 
learn  no  more  than  what  they  must  have  inferred  without 
his  aid,  namely,  that  the  symbol  meant  mischief     The  mes- 


358       GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVIT. 

senger  was  committed  to  the  custody  of  Captain  Standish,to 
be  detained  till  his  message  could  be  more  distinctly  under- 
stood and  answered.  After  a  night's  detention,  he  was  set  at 
liberty,  as  being  under  the  protection  of  "the  law  of  arms." 
He  was  charged  "  to  certify  his  master  that  the  governor  had 
heard  of  his  large  and  many  threatenings,  and  was  much  of- 
fended ;"  to  tell  him  that,  "  if  he  would  not  be  reconciled  to 
live  peaceably,"  the  governor  " dared  him  to  the  utmost;" 
and  to  assure  him  that  the  Englishmen  at  Plymouth,  though 
not  at  all  afraid  of  him,  were  desirous  of  peace  with  him  as 
with  all  men.  All  this  was  while  Squanto  was  absent.  On 
his  return,  he  informed  the  governor  "  that  to  send  the  rattle- 
snake's skin  in  that  manner  imported  enmity,  and  that  it  was 
no  better  than  a  challenge."  After  some  consultation  with 
the  assistant,  the  captain,  and  perhaps  others,  "  the  governor 
stuifed  the  skin  with  powder  and  shot,  and  sent  it  back,  re- 
turning no  less  defiance  to  Canonicus,  assuring  him  that  if 
he  had  shipping  now  present,  thereby  to  send  his  men  to 
Narraganset,  they  would  not  need  to  come  so  far  by  land 
to  us ;  yet  withal  showing  that  they  should  never  come  un- 
welcome or  unlooked  for."  An  Indian  was  found  who  con- 
sented to  be  the  bearer  of  the  message  with  the  stufled  snake- 
skin  ;  and  so  w^ell  did  he  perform  his  task  that  the  Narragan- 
set king  was  not  disposed  to  maintain  his  challenge.  "He 
would  not  once  touch  the  powder  and  shot,  nor  suffer  it  to 
remain  in  his  country."  The  terrible  symbol  was  sent  from 
place  to  place,  till  it  came  back  to  Plymouth  in  good  condition. 
Meanwhile  all  hands  were  busy  with  preparations  for  de- 
fense. Bradford  and  his  associates,  "  notwithstanding  [their] 
high  words  and  lofty  looks"  toward  those  who  threatened 
them,  knew  the  weakness  of  the  colony,  and  what  skill  they 
had  in  military  engineering  w^as  put  in  requisition.  By 
thirty  or  forty  days  of  united  labor,  the  village  was  inclosed 
(Feb.)  with  a  stockade,  having  "flankers  in  convenient 
places,  with  gates  to  shut,  which  were  every  night  locked, 
and  a  watch  kept,  and,  when  need  required,  there  was  also 


A.D.  1622.]  ADVERSITY    AND    PROGRESS.  359 

warding  in  tlie  daytime."  Every  man  under  the  captain  had 
his  immediate  commander,  and  knew  the  point  to  which  he 
must  instantly  repair  in  case  of  an  alarm.  In  such  insecurity 
were  they  night  and  day.  The  entire  force  to  defend  that 
outpost  of  civilization  against  uncounted  hordes  of  savages 
was,  at  the  utmost,  not  more  than  fifty  men  and  boys,  in- 
cluding all  who  had  lately  come  by  the  Fortune.  Keeping 
watch  by  night  and  ward  by  day,  on  their  half-rations,  no 
man  of  them  sleeping  but  with  his  weapons  beside  him  ready 
for  battle,  theirs  must  have  been  a  stalwart  faith  if  they 
could  sing,  "The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd,"  unfalteringly  in 
Ainsworth's  uncouth  verse : 

"Jehovah  feedeth  me,  I  shall  not  lack. 

In  gras.sy  folds  he  down  doth  make  me  lie : 
He  gently  leads  me  quiet  waters  by. 
He  doth  return  my  soul :    For  his  name's  sake, 
In  paths  of  justice  leads  me  quietly. 

"Yea,  though  I  walk  in  dale  of  deadly  shade, 
I'll  fear  none  ill :    For  with  me  thou  wilt  be : 
Thy  rod,  thy  staff  eke,  they  shall  comfort  me. 
'Fore  me  a  table  thou  hast  ready  made 
In  their  presence  that  my  distressers  be." 

Amid  such  anxieties,  the  question  was  raised  whether  it 
would  be  safe  for  them  to  weaken  their  power  of  self-defense 
by  sending  out  a  trading  expedition  which  they  had  planned, 
and  which  the  Indians  around  Boston  harbor  were  expecting. 
Bradford,  Allerton,  and  Standish  (the  governor,  the  assistant, 
and  the  captain),  held  a  consultation  (March)  with  other 
principal  men,  and  their  conclusion  was  that,  "  as  hitherto, 
upon  all  occasions,"  they  "  had  manifested  undaunted  cour- 
age and  resolution,"  so  in  these  circumstances  no  other  policy 
would  be  safe.  Their  storehouse  was  almost  empty,  and  un- 
less they  could  obtain  food  by  traffic  they  must  soon  perish ; 
nor  could  they  shut  themselves  up  in  their  fortification  with- 
out exposing  at  once  their  weakness  and  their  fear.  "  There- 
fore," said  they,  "  we  thought  best  to  proceed  in  our  trading 


360        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

voyage,  making  this  use  of  that  we  heard"  about  hostile  in- 
tentions on  the  part  of  the  savages,  "  to  go  the  better  pro- 
vided, and  use  the  more  carefuhiess  both  at  home  and  abroad, 
leaving  the  event  to  the  disposing  of  the  Almighty.  As  his 
providence  had  hitherto  been  over  us  for  good,  so  we  had 
now  no  cause  (save  our  sins)  to  despair  of  his  mercy  in  our 
preservation  and  continuance,  while  we  desired  rather  to  be 
instruments  of  good  to  the  heathen  about  us  than  to  give 
them  the  least  measure  of  just  offense." 

Just  at  this  time  their  confidence  in  Squanto  was  shaken ; 
for  the  temptations  incident  to  his  position  seemed  to  have 
overpowered  him.  They  found  reason  to  believe  that,  among 
his  fellow-savages,  he  was  pretending  to  have  unbounded  in- 
fluence over  the  English,  and  under  that  pretense  was  taking 
bribes  (perhaps  he  would  have  preferred  to  say  fees)  to  avert 
the  hostility  or  to  conciliate  the  favor  of  the  growing  power 
at  Plymouth.  The  exposure  of  his  practices  made  him  de- 
pendent on  them  for  his  personal  safety ;  for  it  brought  upon 
him  the  wrath  and  life-long  hatred  of  Massasoit.  He  dared 
not  desert  them,  and  they  allowed  him  to  remain  among 
them.  But  in  the  mean  time  they  had  already  taken  under 
their  patronage  another  Indian,  Hobbamoc,  whom  they  found 
faithful  in  their  service,  and  who  was  especially  useful  as  a 
check  upon  Squanto.  If  at  any  time  they  distrusted  what 
one  of  them  said,  they  could  hear  the  testimony  of  the  other, 
and  could  require  that  at  the  mouth  of  two  witnesses  every 
word  should  be  established.  Poor  Squanto  lived  only  a  few 
months  after  the  exposure  of  his  duplicity.  He  died,  "  de- 
siring the  governor  to  pray  for  him  that  he  might  go  to  the 
Englishmen's  God  in  heaven,  and  bequeathed  sundry  of  his 
things  to  sundry  of  his  English  friends  as  remembrances  of 
his  love."  Hobbamoc  lived  several  years  among  the  Pilgrims, 
and  seems  to  have  received,  an  allotment  of  land  in  their 
township.  After  his  death,  he  was  held  in  affectionate  re- 
membrance. When  his  memory  had  not  yet  passed  into  tra- 
dition, it  was  said  of  him  :  "As  he  increased  in  knowledge,  so 


A.D.  1622.]  ADVERSITY    AND    PROGRESS.  361 

in  affection  and  also  in  practice,  reforming  and  conforming 
himself  accordingly ;  and  though  he  was  much  tempted  by 
enticements,  scoffs,  and  scorns  from  the  Indians,  yet  could  he 
never  be  gotten  from  the  English,  nor  from  seeking  after 
their  God,  but  died  among  them,  leaving  some  good  hopes  in 
their  hearts  that  his  soul  went  to  rest." 

In  the  early  summer,  when  the  supply  of  provisions  was 
failing,  and  stark  famine  was  beginning  to  pinch  the  company 
at  Plymouth,  they  were  one  day  startled  by  the  sight  of  a 
sail-boat  coming  into  their  harbor  (June).  The  boat  proved 
to  be  a  shallop  from  the  Sjxotow,  a  vessel  which  Weston  and 
another  of  the  Adventurers  had  sent  to  the  coast  of  Maine 
for  a  fishing  voyage  on  their  private  account.  Any  hope  of 
relief  which  the  sight  of  an  English  sail  might  have  awakened 
was  soon  dispelled,  for  "  this  boat,"  says  Bradford,  "  brought 
seven  passengers  and  some  letters,  but  no  victuals,  nor  any 
promise  of  any."  The  Sjxirroiv  had  sailed  from  England  be- 
fore any  intelligence  of  the  Fortune  had  been  received  there, 
and  the  letters  which  she  brought  gave  to  the  governor  such 
views  of  what  might  be  expected  from  Weston,  and  of  dis- 
cord and  mutual  antipathy  among  the  Adventurers,  that  he 
dared  not  communicate  the  discouraging  information  save  to 
the  few  in  whom  he  could  most  safely  confide.  Weston  was 
proposing  to  withdraw  from  the  partnership  ;  and  though  he 
reiterated  his  professions  of  friendship,  he  and  his  associate 
were  intending  to  send  out  a  colony  which  should  be  their 
own,  and  of  which  these  seven  passengers  were  to  be  the 
pioneers.  He  complained  that  "  the  parsimony  of  the  Ad- 
venturers," overruling  his  generous  intentions,  was  the  rea- 
son why  the  emigrants  by  the  Fortune  were  so  ill  provided 
with  necessaries,  and  that  the  same  parsimony  was  keeping 
back  the  "supply  of  men  and  provisions"  which,  without 
w^aiting  for  her  return,  he  had  been  soliciting  for  the  colony. 
He,  therefore,  and  those  who  were  of  his  faction  among  the 
Adventurers,  invited  the  Planters  to  unite  with  them  in  de- 
manding that  the  partnership  should  be  dissolved  immediate- 


362        GENESIS    OF   THE   NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

ly  by  general  consent,  and  its  assets  divided  among  the  share- 
holders. Bradford  and  the  friends  whom  he  consulted  were 
alarmed  at  these  schemes  of  Weston's.  They  thought  they 
saw  the  reason  why  the  men  whom  he  sent  by  the  Fortune 
were  what  they  were,  and  that  some  of  them  had  been  sent 
in  the  expectation  of  their  deserting  Plymouth  when  the  time 
should  come  for  beginning  his  intended  plantation.  Once 
they  had  trusted  that  man,  believing  in  their  simplicity  that 
he  had  some  sympathy  with  their  enterprise  ;  but  now  it  was 
plain  to  them  that,  all  the  while,  he  had  only  been  using  them 
lor  his  own  advantage,  and  that  he  intended  so  to  use  them 
still,  whatever  the  cost  might  be  to  them.  "  Well  might  it 
make  them  remember  what  the  Psalmist  saith :  '  It  is  better 
to  trust  in  the  Lord  than  to  have  confidence  in  man ;'  and 
'Put  not  your  trust  in  princes' — much  less  in  the  merchants 
—  'nor  in  the  son  of  man,  for  there  is  no  help  in  them;' 
'Blessed  is  he  that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob  for  his  help,  whose 
hope  is  in  the  Lord  his  God.'"^ 

What  were  they  to  do?  Should  they  shut  their  doors 
against  the  seven  men  who  had  been  kept  fishing  in  Wes- 
ton's service  "  till  planting-time  was  over,"  and  had  now  come 
to  demand  their  hospitality?  They  took  in  the  strangers, 
who  "  might  have  starved  if  the  plantation  had  not  succored 
them ;"  and,  day  by  day  till  the  harvest  came,  those  seven, 
who  had  never  done  or  suffered  any  thing  for  the  colony, 
shared  equally  with  the  best  and  most  honored  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  food  from  the  common  stock.  Winslow,  under 
orders  from  the  governor,  and  in  a  boat  belonging  to  the 
colony,  accompanied  the  shallop  on  its  return  to  the  eastern 
fishing-grounds,  where  the  Sparroio  was  only  one  of  about 
thirty  vessels  employed  in  the  same  business.  He  found  a 
kind  reception  among  his  countrymen  there,  and  came  back 
with  a  boat-load  of  provisions  freely  contributed  by  them  for 
the  suffering  colony.     With  this  new  supply,  the  daily  allow- 

^  Psa.  cxviii.,  8 ;  cxlvi.,  3,  5. — Geneva  Version. 


A.D.  1622.]  ADVERSITY    AND    PROGRESS.  363 

ance  of  bread  was  only  a  quarter  of  a  pound  to  each  person ; 
but  inadequate  as  the  relief  was,  it  enabled  the  colony  to  live 
till  harvest.  The  colony  storehouse  seems  to  have  been, 
while  Winslow  was  absent,  and  we  know  not  how  long  before, 
entirely  destitute  of  bread  and  bread-stuffs.  "I  returned 
home,"  he  says,  "  with  all  speed  convenient,  and  found  the 
state  of  the  colony  much  weaker  than  when  I  left  it ;  for  till 
now  we  were  never  without  some  bread,  the  want  whereof 
much  abated  the  strength  and  flesh  of  some,  and  swelled 
others."  "Had  we  not  been  in  a  place  where  divers  sorts  of 
shell-fish  are  that  may  be  taken  with  the  hand,  we  must  have 
perished."^ 

It  was  evident  that  the  Indians  knew  how  weak  the  col- 
ony had  become  ;  and  that  the  Narragansets,  especially,  were 
thinking  how  soon  it  would  be  easy  to  cut  off  the  starv- 
ing remnant.  Massasoit  himself  seemed  to  be  losing  his  re- 
spect for  his  English  allies.  "These  things  occasioned  further 
thoughts  of  fortification."  Part  of  "the  Mount,"  now  known 
as  Burial  Hill,  was  within  the  stockade  which  inclosed  the 
village.  On  that  height  the  Pilgrims,  in  their  weakness, 
"  built  a  fort  with  good  timber  both  strong  and  comely,  .  .  . 
made  with  a  flat  roof  and  battlements,  on  which  their  ord- 
nance were  mounted,  and  where  they  kept  constant  watch — 
especially  in  time  of  danger."  "  This  work,"  says  Winslow, 
"  was  begun  with  great  eagerness  and  with  the  approbation 
of  all  men,  hoping  that  this  being  once  finished,  and  a  con- 
tinual guard  there  kept,  it  would  utterly  discourage  the  sav- 

^  Wmslow  gives  this  explanation.  "It  may  be  said,  if  the  country  abound 
with  fish  and  fowl  in  such  measure  as  is  reported,  how  could  men  undergo 
such  measure  of  hardness,  except  through  their  own  negligence?  I  answer, 
every  thing  must  be  expected  in  its  proper  season.  No  man,  as  one  saith, 
will  go  into  an  orchard  in  the  winter  to  gather  cherries ;  so  he  who  looks  for 
fowl  there  in  the  summer  will  be  deceived  in  his  expectation."  ...  "I  con- 
fess that  as  the  fowl  decrease,  so  fish  increase;"  .  .  .  but,  "though  our  bay 
and  creeks  were  full  of  bass  and  other  fish,  yet  for  want  of  fit  and  strong 
seines  and  other  netting,  they  for  the  most  part  broke  through  and  carried 
all  away  before  them." — Winslow's  "  Relation,"  in  Young,  p.  1294. 


364        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CnUECIlES.      [CH.  XVII. 

ages  from  having  any  hopes  or  thoughts  of  rising  against  us." 
Labor  that  could  not  well  be  spared  from  their  fields  of  In- 
dian corn  was  expended  on  this  building.  "It  was  a  great 
work  for  them  in  this  weakness  and  time  of  wants,"  says 
Bradford ;  "  but  the  danger  of  the  time  required  it ;"  and  not 
only  the  rumors  of  "  insulting  speeches  "  by  the  savages  in  the 
surrounding  regions,  but  "  also  the  hearing  of  that  great  mas- 
sacre in  Virginia,  made  all  hands  willing  to  dispatch  the 
same."  ^  This  fortress  "  served  them  also  for  a  meeting- 
house."    Their  citadel  was  their  temple.^ 

While  they  were  busy  in  this  work — so  great  in  comparison 
with  their  strength — two  more  of  Weston's  vessels  (the  Char- 
ity and  the  Sioan)  arrived  (July),  but  brought  them  no  relief 
nor  any  good  news.  The  Fortune^  on  her  return  voyage, 
had  been  captured  and  plundered  by  Frenchmen,  and  that 
was  the  end  of  the  five  hundred  pounds'  worth  of  beaver  and 
other  merchandise  with  which  she  had  been  freighted  by  the 
colony.  Fifty  or  sixty  men,  employed  by  Weston  in  his  en- 
terprise of  making  a  new  plantation,  came  in  those  vessels, 
expecting  to  find  hospitality  in  Plymouth.  The  larger  ves- 
sel, after  landing  those  of  her  passengers  whom  he  had  sent 
on  his  business,  proceeded  on  her  voyage  to  Virginia;  the 
other,  of  only  sixty  tons,  was  to  remain  for  the  service  of  his 
plantation — as  the  Speedioell^  tw^o  years  before,  would  have 
remained  for  the  service  of  the  Pilgrim  colony,  had  she  come 
safely  with  the  Mayflower.     How  to  deal  with  Weston's  men 

^  The  "great  massacre"  which,  in  the  night  of  March  22, 1622,  struck  ter- 
ror through  the  Virginia  colony,  and  in  which  about  three  hundred  and  fifty- 
English  people  were  killed,  had  just  been  reported  at  Plymouth,  and  was 
reason  enough  why  the  people  there  should  strengthen  their  defenses,  even 
at  the  expense  of  their  corn-fields. 

^  The  building  is  thus  described  by  a  Dutchman  who  visited  Plymouth 
from  New  Amsterdam  in  1627:  "Upon  the  hill,  they  have  a  large  square 
house,  with  a  flat  roof,  made  of  thick  sawn  planks,  stayed  with  oak  beams ; 
upon  the  top  of  which  they  have  six  cannons,  which  shoot  iron  balls  of  four 
or  five  pounds,  and  command  the  surrounding  country.  The  lower  part  they 
use  for  their  church." 


A.D.  1622.]  Weston's  colony.  365 

was  a  perplexing  question.  Letters  that  came  witli  them 
gave  new  ilhistrations  of  his  treachery,  and  of  the  quarrel 
between  him  and  some  of  the  other  Adventurers.  He  w^as 
no  longer  connected  with  the  enterprise,  for  the  company 
had  bought  him  out,  and  thought  they  were  well  rid  of  him ; 
but,  in  his  letter  to  Bradford,  he  was  still  intent  on  a  disso- 
lution of  the  partnership,  repeating  and  urging  his  advice  to 
that  effect,  with  professions  of  disinterested  friendship,  and 
with  malicious  accusations  against  his  late  associates.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  letter  from  two  of  the  Adventurers,  Picker- 
ing and  Greene — a  letter  designed  to  be  secret,  but  betrayed 
to  Weston,  and  then  forwarded  by  him  w^ith  his  commentary 
annexed — warned  Bradford  and  Brewster  against  his  designs. 
They  alleged  that  he  would  permit  no  letters  to  be  sent  by 
his  ships.  He  replied  that  he  had  invited  them  to  send  both 
letters  and  victuals.  But  why  was  there  no  communication 
from  Cushman,  their  fellow-pilgrim?  He  had  always  been 
on  good  terms  with  Weston,  and  had  trusted  him.  Why  did 
he  not  himself  report  to  them  the  ill  success  of  his  voyage 
in  the  Fortune  f  While  they  were  wondering  at  this,  a  let- 
ter, addressed  on  the  outside  as  from  a  wife  in  England  to 
her  husband  in  the  colony,  had  been  opened  by  the  husband, 
and  found  to  be  a  communication  from  Cushman  to  the  gov- 
ernor. It  was  accordingly  delivered  to  Bradford  ;  and  the 
fact  of  its  having  been  sent  under  that  disguise  was  proof 
that  the  writer  agreed  with  Pickering  and  Greene  in  their 
opinion  of  Weston.  After  mentioning  the  capture  of  the 
Fortune^  and  that  their  friends  did  not  seem  to  be  discour- 
aged, he  said :  "  I  purpose,  by  God's  grace,  to  see  you  short- 
ly, I  hope  in  June  next,  or  before.  In  the  mean  space  know 
these  things,  and  I  pray  you  to  be  advertised  a  little.  Mr. 
Weston  hath  quite  broken  off  from  our  Company,  through 
some  discontents  that  arose  betwixt  him  and  some  of  our 
Adventurers,  and  hath  sold  all  his  adventures,  and  hath  now 
sent  three  small  ships  for  his  particular  plantation.  .  .  .  The 
people  which  they  carry  are  no  men  for  us,  wherefore,  I  pray 


366       GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

you,  entertain  them  not,  neither  exehange  man  for  man  with 
them,  except  it  be  some  of  your  worst.  ...  If  they  offer  to 
buy  any  thing  of  you,  let  it  be  such  as  you  can  spare,  and 
let  them  give  the  worth  of  it.  If  they  borrow  any  thing  of 
you,  let  them  leave  a  good  pawn.  ...  I  fear  these  people 
will  hardly  deal  so  well  with  the  savages  as  they  should.  I 
pray  you  therefore  signify  to  Squanto  that  they  are  a  dis- 
tinct body  from  us,  and  that  we  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them,  neither  must  be  blamed  for  their  faults,  much  less  can 
warrant  their  fidelity."  Cushman  was  a  sanguine  hoper,  or 
he  would  not  have  added,  so  confidently,  "  We  are  about  to 
recover  our  losses  in  France  "^ — a  prediction  which,  like  his 
purpose  to  visit  Plymouth  that  summer — does  not  seem  to 
have  been  fulfilled.  In  the  same  cheerful  and  hopeful  spirit 
he  closed  his  letter.  "Our  friends  at  Leyden  are  well,  and 
will  come  to  you  as  many  as  can  this  time.  I  hope  all  will 
turn  to  the  best ;  wherefore  I  pray  you  be  not  discouraged, 
but  gather  up  yourself  to  go  through  these  difliculties  cheer- 
fully and  with  courage  in  that  place  wherein  God  hath  set 
you,  until  the  day  of  refreshing  come.  And  the  Lord  God 
of  sea  and  land  bring  us  comfortably  together  again,  if  it 
may  stand  with  his  glory." 

The  letter  was  indorsed  with  a  few  lines  from  John  Pierce, 
a  friend  of  theirs,  in  whose  name  the  patent  obtained  for  the 
colony  from  "the  Governor  and  Council  of  New  England" 
had  been  taken  out.  "I  desire  you  to  take  into  considera- 
tion that  which  is  written  on  the  other  side,  and  not  in  any 
way  to  damnify  your  own  colony,  whose  strength  is  but 
weakness,  and  may  thereby  be  more  enfeebled.  ...  As  for 
Mr.  Weston's  company,  I  think  them  so  base  in  condition, 
for  the  most  part,  as  in  all  appearance  not  fit  for  an  honest 
man's  company.     I  wish  they  may  prove  otherwise." 

What  the  men  were  who  swayed  the  little  community  at 
Plymouth,  and  what  their  religion  was,  appears  in  the  fact 
that  with  so  full  a  revelation  of  AVeston's  plans,  and  with 
such  warnino;  afrainst  the  men,  concerning:  whom  he  had  him- 


A.D.  1622.]  WESTON's   COLONY.  367 

self  confessed  that  many  of  them  were  "rude  fellows,"  they 
"concluded  to  give  his  men  friendly  entertainment."  They 
were  unwilling  to  forget  what  he  had  formerly  done  for 
them,  and  that  some  of  them  were  under  particular  obliga- 
tions of  gratitude  to  him.  At  the  same  time  they  could  not 
but  pity  "the  people  who  were  now  come  into  a  wilderness 
and  were  presently  to  be  put  ashore,"  altogether  unacquainted 
with  what  was  before  them  and  ignorant  what  to  do.  Those 
"rude  fellows"  bore  no  such  resemblance  to  Christ  as  would 
make  them  his  "  brethren,"  yet  they  were  "  strangers  "  thrown 
upon  the  hospitality  of  an  impoverished  but  Christian  com- 
munity, and  they  were  taken  in.  It  was  a  generous  magna- 
nimity toward  Weston,  and  a  rare  charity  toward  his  worth- 
less gang,  when  the  Plymouth  people,  instead  of  bidding 
them  shift  for  themselves,  received  them  hospitably,  gave 
them  shelter  for  their  persons  and  their  goods,  and  succored 
the  many  of  them  who  were  sick  with  "the  best  means  the 
place  afforded."  Fortunately  these  new  guests  were  not  des- 
titute of  food,  as  the  seven  were  who  came  by  the  Bparrow^ 
and  whom  the  colony  had  received  to  share  in  its  scanty 
supply.  But  of  the  provision  brought  by  the  Charity  and 
the  Sioan  for  Weston's  men,  Plymouth  received  nothing. 
While  some  of  the  most  capable  were  exploring  to  find  a 
place  for  the  intended  plantation,  the  others  waited  for  the 
result  till  the  end  of  summer.  They  made  some  show  of 
service  in  the  corn-fields  ;  but  there  they  were  more  mischiev- 
ous than  vermin,  stealing  the  unripe  ears  at  night,  and  even 
in  the  daytime,  and  so  destroying  the  harvest  for  which  oth- 
ers had  labored.  After  some  exploration,  a  place  called  by 
the  natives  Wessagusset  —  now  known  as  Weymouth,  near 
Boston — was  selected  for  Weston's  plantation  ;  and  as  many 
of  his  men  as  were  deemed  fit  for  service  went  to  begin  their 
work.  The  story  of  the  hospitality  shown  by  the  Pilgrims 
to  those  disagreeable  guests  is  not  fairly  told  without  add- 
ing that  the  invalids  of  Weston's  company — the  "sick  and 
lame" — were  left  at  Plymouth  by  permission  from  the  gov- 

B  B  * 


368      GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.      [CH.  XVII. 

ernor,  and  received  gratuitously  the  best  medical  treatment 
the  colony  could  give,  till  accommodations  were  provided 
for  them  at  Wessagusset.  Nothing  was  received  in  return 
for  all  this  hospitality.  Nothing  was  desired ;  for  evidently 
the  strangers  "  were  an  unruly  company,  and  had  no  good 
"overnment  over  them,  and  would  soon  fall  into  wants,"  and 
it  was  wiser  to  treat  them  as  beggars  dependent  on  charity 
than  to  deal  with  them  as  equals. 

The  longed-for  time  of  harvest  was  approaching.  Sixty 
acres  had  been  planted  with  Indian  corn  —  the  only  grain 
which  the  colony  attempted  to  raise  that  year;  and  it  had 
been  expected  that  the  yield  from  that  planting  would  be  a 
sufficient  supply.  But  so  imperfect  was  the  crop  —  partly 
through  the  inexperience  of  the  cultivators,  partly  by  defi- 
ciency of  strength  for  the  necessary  work  in  the  fields,  and 
partly  because  thieves  (not  only  Weston's  men  but  some  of 
their  own)  had  stolen  the  unripe  ears — that  the  prospect  of 
food  for  another  winter  was  discouraging.  "  Markets  there 
were  none  to  go  to,  but  only  Indians ;"  and  the  colony  had 
nothing  to  spare  which  the  Indians  would  purchase  with 
corn.  At  that  crisis,  the  religious  spirit  of  Bradford  and  his 
brethren  saw,  in  the  relief  that  came  to  them,  the  providence 
of  God,  who  feeds  the  ravens  and  much  more  his  own  chil- 
dren. Some  English  merchants  had  sent  out  a  vessel — the 
Discovery — to  explore  the  New  England  coast  and  observe 
its  harbors ;  and  it  was  a  glad  day  at  Plymouth  (Aug.)  when 
she  arrived  there.  From  her  commander  they  obtained  such 
provisions  as  they  most  needed  and  he  could  best  spare,  and, 
what  was  of  more  importance  to  them,  a  supply  of  commod- 
ities for  their  trade  with  the  Indians ;  but  he  was  careful  to 
have  a  good  bargain.  "  As  he  used  us  kindly,"  says  Wins- 
low,  "  so  he  made  us  pay  largely."  They  exchanged  with 
him  "coat  beaver"  at  the  lowest  price  for  cheap  knives  and 
beads  at  the  highest  price;  but  "by  this  means  they  were 
fitted  again  to  trade  for  beaver  and  other  things."  They 
were  well  aware  that  savage  industry  produced  little  else 


A.D.  1622.]  Weston's  colony.  369 

than  peltry  for  any  mai  ket ;  but  they  "  intended  to  buy  what 
corn  they  could." 

The  anticipations  of  the  Plymouth  governor  in  regard  to 
Weston's  men  began  to  be  realized  very  soon.  "They  had 
not  been  long  from  us,"  says  Winslow,  "  ere  the  Indians  fill- 
ed our  ears  with  clamors  against  them  for  stealing  their  corn 
and  other  abuses."  Such  clamors  were  the  more  ominous  of 
evil  because  they  came  from  Indians  w^ho  had  desired  to  have 
more  intimate  relations  with  the  white  men.  Unfortunately 
for  the  complainants,  Bradford  had  no  jurisdiction  over  the 
men  of  Wessagusset.  So  long  as  they  were  at  Plymouth, 
they  were  under  his  government;  and  the  stripes  inflicted 
on  some  of  them  for  stealing  corn  from  the  field  were  a  tes- 
timony to  them  that  the  Pilgrim  magistrate  did  not  bear  the 
sword  in  vain.  But  after  their  removal  to  their  own  planta- 
tion, he  could  only  remonstrate  with  them  and  advise  them. 
The  men  whom  Weston  had  thought  fit  for  the  work  of  plant- 
ing a  colony  that  should  be  more  prosperous  than  Plymouth 
— men  unaccustomed  to  regard  the  moral  quality  and  the 
ulterior  consequences  of  their  actions — could  not  be  restrain- 
ed without  something  more  potent  than  remonstrance  and 
advice.  Little  thought  would  they  give  to  the  argument 
that  their  savage  neighbors,  if  thus  wronged,  would  soon  be- 
come implacable  and  dangerous  enemies. 

After  a  little  while  the  results  of  their  recklessness  began 
to  appear  in  another  direction.  Instead  of  husbanding  their 
supply  of  food,  they  had  wasted  it  and  were  beginning  to  be  in 
want.  Richard  Greene,  Weston's  brother-in-law,  and  in  his 
behalf  the  overseer  and  governor  of  his  plantation,  having 
learned  that  the  Plymouth  people  had  obtained  means  for 
purchasing  corn  of  the  Indians,  proposed  to  join  them,  and 
ofiered  the  SjKirroic  for  that  service  (Oct.).  Conditions  of 
partnership  were  agreed  upon  ;  for  it  was  obviously  better 
to  have  even  so  slight  a  check  on  the  proceedings  of  his  peo- 
ple than  to  let  them  operate  entirely  at  their  own  discretion. 
Two  short  voyages  were  made  along  the  coast ;  one  under 


370       GENESIS    OP   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

the  personal  direction  of  Governor  Bradford,  the  other  com- 
manded by  Captain  Standish,  and  supplies  of  Indian  corn 
were  obtained,  to  be  divided  between  the  two  colonies. 
Bradford  and  Standish  made  also  some  journeys  by  land  to 
purchase  more  corn  for  Plymouth. 

But  the  winter  had  not  gone  by  when  there  came  to  Plym- 
outh a  messenger  with  a  letter  from  Sanders  (March,  1623), 
who,  by  the  death  of  Greene,  had  been  left  in  command  at 
Wessagusset.  The  plantation  there  being  in  want,  Sanders 
had  in  vain  attempted  to  borrow  corn  of  his  Indian  neigh- 
bors, and  he  desired  Bradford's  advice  whether  he  might  not 
take  from  them  by  force  enough  to  feed  his  people  in  his  ab- 
sence, for  he  was  going  eastward  to  procure  supplies.  Imme- 
diately the  governor  and  his  assistant  held  a  consultation 
with  the  principal  men  of  Plymouth.  The  result  was  a  let- 
ter by  Bradford,  which  they  all  subscribed,  and  of  which 
Winslow  gives  a  summary  too  characteristic  of  the  men  to 
be  left  out  of  our  story.  The  contents  were  to  this  pur- 
pose : 

"  We  altogether  disliked  their  purpose  as  being  against 
the  law  of  God  and  nature.  We  showed  them  how  it  would 
cross  the  worthy  ends  and  proceedings  of  the  king's  majesty 
and  of  his  honorable  council  for  this  place,  both  in  respect  of 
the  peaceable  enlarging  of  his  majesty's  dominions,  and  also 
of  the  propagation  of  the  knowledge  and  law  of  God  and  the 
glad  tidings  of  salvation,  which  we  and  they  were  bound  to 
seek.  .  .  .  We  assured  them  tlieir  master  would  incur  much 
blame  hereby,  neither  could  they  answer  the  same.  For  our 
own  parts,  our  case  was  almost  the  same  with  theirs.  We 
had  but  a  small  quantity  of  corn  left,  and  were  enforced  to 
live  on  ground-nuts,  clams,  muscles,  and  such  other  things  as 
naturally  the  country  afforded,  and  which  would  maintain 
strength  and  were  easy  to  be  gotten — all  which  things  they 
had  in  great  abundance ;  yea,  oysters  also,  which  we  want- 
ed. Therefore  necessity  could  not  be  said  to  constrain  them. 
Moreover,  they  should  consider  that,  if  they  proceeded  there- 


A.D.  1623.]  Weston's  colony.  371 

in,  all  they  could  so  get  would  maintain  them  but  a  small 
time,  and  then  they  must  perforce  seek  tlieir  food  abroad, 
which  would  be  very  difficult  for  them,  having  made  the  In- 
dians their  enemies.  Therefore  it  would  be  much  better  to 
begin  a  little  sooner,  and  so  continue  their  peace  —  upon 
which  course  they  might  with  good  conscience  desire  and 
expect  the  blessing  of  God. 

"Also  (we  told  them)  that  they  should  consider  their  own 
weakness — the  effect  of  disease — and  that  they  should  not 
expect  help  from  us  in  that  or  any  the  like  unlawful  actions. 
Lastly,  that  however  some  of  them  might  escape,  yet  the 
principal  agents  should  expect  no  better  than  the  gallows, 
whenever  any  special  officer  should  be  sent  over  by  his  maj- 
esty or  his  council  for  New  England  (which  we  expected), 
who  would  undoubtedly  call  them  to  account  for  the  same." 

This  letter,  subscribed  by  the  leading  men  of  Plymouth, 
was  directed  to  the  whole  company  at  Wessagusset.  At 
the  same  time  the  governor  addressed  a  special  and  personal 
letter  to  Sanders,  advising  him  to  desist  from  the  proposed 
robbery,  and  warning  him  that  it  would  be  dangerous  for 
him  above  the  rest,  inasmuch  as  he  was  their  leader  and 
commander.  With  such  replies  the  Indian  messenger — prob- 
ably as  unconscious  of  his  errand,  either  way,  as  the  wires 
over  which  messages  pass  in  these  days — returned  to  those 
who  had  sent  him.  The  appeal  to  their  fears  was  so  far  suc- 
cessful that  they  receded  from  their  purpose,  and  concluded 
to  live  after  the  Plymouth  fashion  till  Sanders  should  return 
from  his  eastward  expedition.  But  he  could  not  fit  out  even 
a  shallop  for  that  voyage  without  first  coming  to  Plymouth, 
where  Bradford,  from  their  scanty  store,  supplied  him  with 
corn  to  feed  his  boat's  crew. 

Such  a  company  of  runagates  as  Weston  had  sent  over 
could  not  but  breed,  sooner  or  later,  a  conspiracy  of  the  sav- 
ages against  the  English.  The  experience  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years,  since  that  time,  has  shown  that  on  whatever 
frontier  reckless  and  half-savage  white  men  come  into  com- 


372       GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW   ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

munication  with  savage  red  men,  whom  they  teach  at  once 
to  hate  them  and  to  despise  them,  "  Indian  hostilities  "  are 
the  consequence,  and  that  the  Indian  in  taking  vengeance 
rarely  discriminates  between  one  sort  of  white  men  and  an- 
other. Bradford  tells  how  it  was  that  Weston's  people  were 
distressed  so  soon,though  the  ship  had  left  them  "  competent- 
ly provided,"  and  though  they  had  their  half  of  the  corn 
purchased  of  the  Indians,  besides  what  they  obtained  of  the 
natives  in  their  vicinity.  He  says  that  they  "spent  exces- 
sively "  whatever  they  had  or  could  get.  He  intimates  that 
they  "wasted  part  among  the  Indians"  in  a  way  which  he 
suggests  by  declining  to  vouch  for  the  story  which  some  of 
them  told  about  what  "  he  that  was  their  chief"  expended 
in  his  relations  with  Indian  women.  After  they  began  to  be 
in  want,  many  of  them  sold  their  garments  and  bedding ; 
others  became  servants  to  the  Indians — hewers  of  wood  and 
bearers  of  water  "  for  a  cap-full  of  corn ;"  others  "  fell  to 
plain  stealing"  from  their  savage  neighbors.  "In  the  end, 
they  came  to  that  misery  that  some  starved  and  died  with 
cold  and  hunger."  In  that  misery  "most  of  them  left  their 
dwellings  and  scattered  up  and  down  in  the  woods  and  by 
the  water-side,  where  they  could  find  ground-nuts  and  clams." 
All  this  while  the  Indians  were  learning  to  despise  and  scorn 
them,  even  to  the  extent  of  insulting  them,  and  now  and  then 
robbing  them  of  food  or  of  "a  sorry  blanket"  by  main 
strength.  Such  was  the  distress  which  they  proposed  to  re- 
lieve by  plundering  the  corn-heaps  of  the  more  provident 
savages  around  them ;  and  that  design  of  theirs,  though  they 
were  dissuaded  from  it,  was  by  some  of  them  betrayed  to 
those  who  were  to  have  been  the  victims.  After  all  this, 
what  else  than  "a  conspiracy  against  the  English"  could  be 
expected  of  the  Indians  ? 

Meanwhile  the  vigilance  of  Standish  and  other  Plymouth 
men  had  already  discovered  that  some,  at  least,  of  the  sav- 
ages, at  no  great  distance  from  them,  were  becoming  hostile, 
and  w^ere  planning  mischief.     Just  then  (March)  the  news 


:-tiJSr^d-C 


IP. 


A.D.  1623.]        WHAT    CAME    OF    WESTON's    COLONY.  373 

came  that  their  friend  Massasoit  was  sick  and  likely  to  die. 
Winslow  was  sent  by  the  governor  to  visit  him,  for  it  was 
"a  commendable  manner  of  the  Indians"  to  visit  a  friend  in 
that  extremity.  Accompanied  by  a  friend  from  London,^ 
who  had  wintered  in  the  colony,  and  was  desirous  of  seeing 
more  of  the  country,  and  with  Hobbamoc  for  guide  and  in- 
terpreter, he  undertook  the  journey.  On  their  way,  they 
were  told  once  and  again  that  their  friend  was  dead.  But 
when  they  arrived  at  Pokanoket,  they  found  him  still  alive, 
though  his  sight  had  failed,  and  he  seemed  very  near  to 
death.  The  house  was  full  of  Indians  in  the  midst  of  their 
incantations  for  him,  "  making,"  says  Winslow,  "  such  a  hell- 
ish noise  as  distempered  us  that  were  well,  and  was  there- 
fore unlikely  to  ease  him  that  was  sick."  Six  or  eight  wom- 
en were  chafing  the  patient's  limbs  "  to  keep  heat  in  him." 
When  an  interval  of  comparative  silence  had  been  obtained, 
he  was  told  that  his  friends  the  English  had  come  to  see 
him.  He  was  sufficiently  conscious  to  ask,  "  Who?"  They 
told  him  "  Winsnow  ;"  ^  and  he  desired  to  speak  with  his  En- 
glish friend.  "  When  I  came  to  him,"  says  that  friend,  "  and 
they  told  him  of  it,  he  put  forth  his  hand  to  me,  which  I 
took.  Then  he  said  twice,  though  very  inwardly,  ''Keen 
Wmsnoio  f  which  is  to  say,  'Art  thou  Winslow?'  I  an- 
swered, ' Ahhe^  that  is,  'Yes.'  Then  he  doubled  these 
words,  ^  Matta  neen  xconckanet  navnen^  Winsnow  P  that  is  to 
say, '  Oh,  Winslow,  I  shall  never  see  thee  again.' "  With  the 
aid  of  Hobbamoc,  Winslow  told  him  that  the  governor,  be- 
ing unable  to  come  in  person,  had  sent  him  with  such  things 
as  might  do  good  to  one  in  such  extremity.     What  medical 

'  "  One  Mastei'  John  Hamden,  a  gentleman  of  London,"  has  been  thought 
by  some  to  be  identical  with  the  illustrious  patriot,  John  Hampden.  But, 
aside  from  the  similarity  of  the  names,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the 
"  gentleman  of  London  "  was  the  Hampden  who  makes  so  great  a  figure  in 
English  history.     See  Young,  p.  314,  31."). 

*  "For  they  can  not  pronounce  the  letter  /,  but  ordinarily  n  in  the  place 
thereof" — Winslow,  in  Young,  p.  318. 


374       GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

virtue  there  was  in  the  "confection  of  many  comfortable 
conserves  "  which  he  had  brought,  we  know  not ;  but  with 
some  difficulty  he  succeeded  in  administering  a  little  of  it, 
and  soon  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  his  patient  some- 
what relieved.  By  his  assiduous  and  ingenious  nursing,  add- 
ed to  the  efficacy  of  the  "confection,"  the  recovery  was  in  a 
few  hours  decided,  though  not  yet  complete.  "  With  admi- 
ration," Winslow  and  his  English  friend  "blessed  God  for 
giving  his  blessing  to  such  raw  and  ignorant  means,"  the 
sachem  and  all  his  Indian  friends  "  acknowledging  them  as 
the  instruments  of  his  preservation." 

Something  of  nobleness  in  the  nature  of  the  savage  showed 
itself  when  he  began  to  know  that  he  was  recovering.  His 
first  thought  was  of  others  needing  similar  relief,  and  he  de- 
sired the  kind  friend,  who  had  saved  his  life,  to  go  from  one 
to  another  of  the  sick  throughout  the  village,  and  to  give 
them  the  benefit  of  his  healing  skill ;  for,  he  said,  "  they  were 
good  folk,"  and  worth  caring  for.  At  the  same  time  he  was 
profuse  in  the  expression  of  his  gratitude.  He  had  been  told 
the  day  before  Winslow  came,  "  You  see  how  hollow-hearted 
your  English  friends  are ;  had  they  been  what  they  pretend 
to  be,  they  would  have  visited  you  in  your  sickness."  Re- 
membering this,  he  said,  repeating  it  often,  "Now  I  see  the 
English  are  my  friends,  and  love  me.  .  .  .  While  I  live,  I 
will  never  forget  this  kindness."  When  his  visitors,  after 
two  days,  were  ready  to  depart,  he  revealed  to  Hobbamoc,  in 
the  presence  of  only  two  or  three  trusty  counselors,  the 
whole  story  of  a  plot  to  destroy  the  English — how  it  began 
with  the  Massachusetts  near  Weston's  colony — how  the  peo- 
ple of  Nauset,  Paomet,  and  other  places  had  joined  in  the 
conspiracy — how  he  himself  had  been  solicited  and  argued 
with — how  the  Massachusetts,  having  determined  to  exter- 
minate Weston's  colony,  and  not  doubting  their  ability  to  do 
so,  had  considered  that  the  men  of  Plymouth  would  be  like- 
ly to  take  vengeance  on  them,  and  were  postponing  the  exe- 
cution of  their  purpose  only  till  the  conspiracy  should  be 


A.D.  1623.]        WHAT    CAME    OF   WESTON's    COLONY.  375 

wide  enough  to  annihilate  Plymouth  also.  He  therefore 
charged  Hobbomoc  not  only  to  make  his  English  friends  ac- 
quainted with  these  facts,  but  also  to  advise  them,  as  from 
him,  that  if  they  regarded  the  lives  of  their  countrymen  or 
their  own  safety,  they  must  act  promptly,  and  must  prevent 
the  intended  massacre  by  putting  the  chief  conspirators  to 
death.  Hobbamoc  communicated  all  this  to  Winslow  as 
they  were  returning  to  Plymouth,  and  to  Bradford  immedi- 
ately after  their  arrival.  Information  of  the  conspiracy  came 
at  the  same  time  from  another  source.  What  was  to  be 
done  ? 

It  was  the  time  for  the  annual  town-meeting  or  legislative 
assembly.  To  that  assembly  (March  23=: April  2)  the  gov- 
ernor, "  having  a  double  testimony  and  many  circumstances 
aQ:reeinQ:  with  the  truth  thereof,"  communicated  the  alarm- 
ins:  intelliscence.  "This  business  was  no  less  troublesome 
than  grievous"  (such  is  Winslow's  account  of  the  meeting), 
"especially  for  that  we  knew  no  means  to  deliver  our  coun- 
trymen and  preserve  ourselves  save  by  returning  the  mali- 
cious and  cruel  purposes  "  of  the  conspirators  "  upon  their  own 
heads,  and  causing  them  to  fall  into  the  same  pit  they  had 
digged  for  others;  though  it  much  grieved  us  to  shed  the 
blood  of  those  whose  good  we  ever  intended  and  aimed  at, 
as  a  principal  [object]  in  all  our  proceedings."  The  conclu- 
sion was  that,  inasmuch  as  prompt  action  was  required,  and 
the  measures  to  be  taken  for  the  salvation  of  the  colony  must 
by  no  means  be  divulged  among  the  Indians  who  were  daily 
coming  and  going,  the  governor,  the  assistant,  and  the  cap- 
tain, consulting  with  others  at  their  discretion,  were  author- 
ized to  take  care  that  the  commonwealth  should  receive  no 
detriment. 

By  that  triumvirate  it  was  determined  that  Standish  should 
take  "so  many  men  as  he  thought  sufficient"  for  the  occa- 
sion, and,  going  to  Wessagusset  as  if  on  a  trading  expedi- 
tion, should  first  communicate  with  Weston's  men  and  ascer- 
tain what  they  knew  concerning  the  conspiracy,  so  that  "  he 


3V6       GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

might  the  better  judge  the  certainty  of  it,"  and  might  be 
ready  for  any  opportunity  of  punishing  the  authors  of  it.  It 
was  well  known  that  one  chief  instigator  of  the  plot  was 
Wituwamat,  of  the  Massachuset  tribe,  "  a  notable  insulting 
villain,  who  had  formerly  imbrued  his  hands  in  the  blood 
of  English  and  French,  and  had  oft  boasted  of  his  own  valor 
and  derided  their  weakness,  especially  because,  as  he  said, 
they  died  crying,  making  sour  faces,  more  like  children  than 
men."  It  was  therefore  determined  that  the  captain,  after 
ascertaining  by  inquiry  at  Wessagusset  the  inevitableness  of 
a  conflict,  "  should  forbear,  if  it  were  possible,  till  he  could 
make  sure  of  that  bloody  and  bold  villain — whose  head  he 
had  order  to  bring  with  him,  that  he  might  be  a  warning  and 
terror  to  all  of  that  disposition." 

Standish,  without  delay,  made  ready  for  the  expedition, 
selecting  eight  men,  who,  he  thought,  would  be  a  sufficient 
force.  But  the  next  day,  before  they  could  sail,  a  fugitive, 
who  had  found  his  way  through  the  woods  from  Wessagus- 
set, arrived  with  a  sad  story  of  the  condition  into  which  that 
colony  had  fallen,  and  with  confirmation  of  what  had  been 
learned  from  other  sources  about  the  impending,  danger. 
Evidently  the  exigency  required  haste;  and  the  nine  chosen 
men  went  on  their  errand  with  a  clear  conviction  that,  un- 
der God,  all  the  future  of  New  England  was  depending  on 
their  valoi-. 

The  captain  and  his  little  force — more  like  a  squad  of  arm- 
ed policemen  than  like  a  military  expedition — sailed  along 
the  coast  (March  25  =z April  4)  and  entered  what  was  then 
called  the  Massachuset  Bay,  but  is  now  the  "broad-armed" 
port  of  Boston.  As  the  Sparroic  was  lying  in  that  smooth 
water,  they  went  first  to  her,  "but  found  neither  man  nor  so 
much  as  a  dog  therein  " — so  entirely  was  she  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Indians,  who,  as  the  truth  afterward  came  to  light, 
were  only  waiting  for  some  of  Weston's  unsuspecting  men 
to  make  them  two  more  canoes  before  taking  possession  of 
her.    The  discharge  of  a  gun  served  as  a  signal,  and  brought 


A.D.  1623.]        WHAT    CAME    OF    WESTON's    COLONY.  S'Z'? 

into  sight  a  few  of  the  wretched  settlers,  "  who  were  on  the 
shore  gathering  ground-nuts,  and  getting  other  food."  Aft- 
er a  little  talk  with  them,  the  captain  went  to  their  village, 
where  he  conferred  with  such  of  the  people  as  seemed  most 
capable,  telling  them  what  their  peril  was,  and  offering,  in 
the  governor's  name,  a  refuge  for  their  whole  company  at 
Plymouth,  if  they  were  afraid  to  remain  where  they  were.  At 
the  same  time,  he  assured  them  that,  if  they  thought  they 
could  provide  for  their  safety  in  some  other  way,  he  would 
help  them  to  the  utmost  of  his  power.  His  revelation  of  the 
plan  which  the  Indians  were  just  ready  to  execute  was  con- 
firmed by  circumstances  which  those  incompetent  men  had 
observed  but  had  not  understood;  and  his  offer  of  relief  and 
protection  was  eagerly  accepted.  The  stragglers  from  the 
village  were  immediately  called  home,  and  were  kept  from 
starving  by  a  daily  though  scanty  allowance  of  Indian  corn 
from  the  captain's  military  stores.  Wet  and  stormy  weather 
prevailed  for  a  few  days ;  but  through  the  wet  and  storm 
there  came  an  Indian,  ostensibly  for  trade,  though  it  was  evi- 
dent enough  that  what  he  wanted  was  information  as  to  why 
those  men  from  Plymouth  were  there.  He  found  more  re- 
serve than  he  had  been  used  to  in  his  intercourse  with  the 
white  men  of  Wessagusset ;  and  his  report  at  his  return 
was,  "I  saw  by  the  captain's  eyes  that  he  was  angry  in  his 
heart."  The  savages  began  to  know  that  their  plot  had  been 
unveiled. 

Yet  they  did  not  accept  the  discovery  as  a  defeat.  They 
thought  themselves  strong  enough  for  open  war.  "One 
Pecksuot,"  who  was  what  would  now  be  called  "a  brave," 
came  to  Hobbamoc  with  a  message  of  defiance:  "Tell  the 
captain  we  know  why  he  has  come,  but  we  fear  him  not,  nor 
will  we  shun  him ;  but  let  him  begin  when  he  dare,  he  shall 
not  take  us  at  unawares."  In  various  forms  and  by  various 
messengers  the  defiance  was  repeated  with  insulting  threats 
—  all  which  "the  captain  observed,  yet  bare  with  patience 
for  the  present."     But  when  his  time  for  action  had  come, 


378       GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

he  began  by  putting  to  death  Pecksuot,Wituwamat,  and  two 
others ;  the  first  two  and  another  in  a  hand-to-hand  fight,  the 
fourth  by  hanging.  Three  more  Indians  were  killed,  two  of 
them  by  some  of  Weston's  people,  and  the  war  which  was  to 
have  annihilated  both  settlements  was  ended.  Three  of  Wes- 
ton's men,  being,  as  they  thought,  on  good  terms  with  the 
savages  because  of  services  rendered,  had  gone,  in  contempt 
of  strict  orders,  to  the  Massachuset  sachem  with  oflfers  of 
more  service  for  more  victuals.  One  of  these  was  prudent 
enough  to  escape.  The  others  were  killed  before  they  could 
be  rescued. 

Weston's  men  had  seen  all  they  desired  to  see  of  life  in 
New  England.  They  were  resolved  to  forsake  their  planta- 
tion ;  though  "  the  captain  told  them  that,  for  his  own  part, 
he  durst  there  live  with  fewer  men  than  they  were,"  A  few 
accepted  his  oflPer,  and  embarked  with  him  and  his  eight  in 
the  shallop  for  Plymouth.  The  others  set  sail  in  the  Sparrow 
for  the  fishing-grounds,  hoping  to  find  passage  thence  for  En- 
gland. Standish,  having  supplied  them  with  food  for  their 
voyage,  saw  them  "clear  of  the  Massachuset  Bay;"  and  then 
returned  to  Plymouth,  bringing,  according  to  instructions 
from  the  council  of  war,  the  head  of  Wituwamat. 

Such  was  the  end  of  Weston's  attempt  to  colonize  New 
England  by  dealing  exclusively  with  the  selfish  element  in 
human  nature.  His  men,  on  their  arrival  at  Plymouth  nine 
months  before,  had  "  boasted  of  their  strength  (being  all  able, 
lusty  men),  and  of  what  they  would  do  and  bring  to  pass, 
in  comparison  of  the  people  there,  who  had  many  women  and 
children  and  weak  ones  among  them."  When  they  saw  how 
impoverished  the  little  colony  was  which  Bradford  governed, 
they  promised  themselves  "  that  they  would  take  another 
course,  and  not  fall  into  such  a  condition  as  this  simple  peo- 
ple were  come  to."  No  thought  had  they  of  self-sacrifice 
for  Christ's  sake — no  dream  of  a  refuge  which  they,  in  that 
wilderness,  were  to  make  for  truth  and  purity,  persecuted  in 
the  old  world  —  no  inspiration  even  from  household  affec- 


A.D.  1623.]        WHAT   CAME    OF   WESTON's    COLONY.  379 

tions  and  anxieties.  They — practical  men,  amply  provided 
for  and  unincumbered — were  sure  to  prosper.  "But,"  said 
Bradford,  making  the  record  of  their  failure,  "  a  man's  way 
is  not  in  his  own  power:  God  can  make  the  weak  to  stand; 
let  him  also  that  standeth  take  heed  lest  he  fall." 

The  sequel  of  Weston's  story  may  be  given  in  a  few  words. 
Not  long  after  the  breaking  up  at  Wessagusset,  he  arrived 
on  the  coast  of  Maine,  a  passenger  in  one  of  the  fishing  ves- 
sels. For  some  reason,  he  had  come  disguised  and  under  a 
fictitious  name.  At  his  arrival,  he  learned  "  the  ruin  and 
dissolution  of  his  colony."  He  obtained  a  boat,  and,  with  a 
man  or  two,  set  forth  for  Wessagusset  to  see  if  any  thing 
remained.  Overtaken  by  a  storm,  he  was  cast  away  some- 
where on  what  is  now  the  coast  of  New  Hampshire,  hardly  es- 
caping with  his  life.  Falling  among  Indians,  he  was  robbed 
of  what  he  had  saved  from  the  sea,  and  was  stripped  to  his 
shirt.  In  that  forlorn  condition  he  found  his  way  to  the 
settlement  just  begun  on  the  Piscataqua  River.  There  he 
succeeded  in  borrowing  clothes  for  his  most  urgent  need,  and 
in  obtaining  means  for  proceeding  to  Plymouth.  At  that 
place,  those  who  had  known  him  in  his  better  days,  and 
whom  he  had  wronged  and  insulted  in  their  distresses,  had 
compassion  on  him.  He  wanted  to  borrow  of  them  the  bea- 
ver which  they  had  collected,  and  which  was  their  only  de- 
pendence for  the  purchase  of  supplies  from  England,  and  he 
made  them  large  promises.  They  distrusted  his  promises; 
but  they  "  remembered  former  courtesies,"  and  in  pity  they 
loaned  him  a  hundred  beaver-skins.  With  this  new  capital 
he  went  eastward,  took  possession  of  the  Sjxirroto,  and,  hav- 
ing rallied  some  of  his  men  who  had  fled  from  Wessagusset, 
resumed  business,  endeavoring  to  retrieve  his  fortune.  Yet, 
like  the  ungrateful  knave  that  he  was,  he  never  repaid  the 
loan,  nor  requited  the  kindness  otherwise  than  by  persistent 
enmity.  Afterward,  when  he  was  in  trouble  with  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  great  "  Council  for  New  England,"  Govern- 
or Bradford  kindly  interceded  for  him.     But  to  the  last  he 


880      GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

'was  the  enemy  of  the  Pilgrims.     Thus  he  disappears  from 
our  history,  though  he  lived  a  few  years  longer. 

The  third  season  for  planting  Indian  corn  had  come  (April). 
So  largely  had  the  colony  divided  its  supplies  of  corn  with 
strangers,  that  none  remained  save  what  had  been  reserved 
for  seed.  For  more  than  two  years  all  labor  in  the  settle- 
ment had  been  exacted  and  performed  in  the  communistic 
method  on  which  the  Adventurers  had  so  unwisely  insisted 
— no  man  had  labored  for  himself  and  his  own  family;  but 
every  man  had  been  required  to  labor,  as  under  a  task-mas- 
ter, for  the  community.  Bradford  and  the  others  had  main- 
tained in  good  faith  the  contract  against  which  their  good 
sense  protested.  But  now,  there  being  no  supply  of  food  in 
the  public  store,  it  had  become  impossible  to  enforce  the 
preposterous  engagement.  "It  was  therefore  thought  best," 
and  in  a  general  meeting  of  the  company  it  was  agreed, 
"that  every  man  should  use  the  best  diligence  he  could  for 
his  own  preservation,  both  in  respect  of  the  time  present,  and 
to  prepare  his  own  corn  for  the  year  following."  At  the  same 
time  it  Avas  ordered  that  "  a  competent  portion  "  of  every 
man's  crop  should  belong  to  the  colony  for  the  maintenance 
of  those  who,  being  constantly  employed  in  the  public  serv- 
ice, could  not  be  expected  to  raise  corn  for  themselves.  As 
yet  the  relation  of  tlie  Planters  to  the  Adventurers  would  not 
permit  a  permanent  division  of  the  soil,  so  that  each  family 
should  have  its  own  freehold  and  inheritance ;  but,  for  that 
year,  there  was  assigned  by  lot  to  each  individual  a  certain 
quantity  of  land  which  he  was  to  cultivate  at  his  own  dis- 
cretion and  according  to  his  own  ability.  The  beneficial  ef- 
fects of  the  new  arrangement  were  immediately  manifest. 
"It  made  all  hands  very  industrious,  so  as  much  more  corn 
was  planted  than  otherwise  would  have  been  by  any  means 
the  governor  could  use."  The  forces  of  human  nature,  made 
for  free  industry,  began  to  have  fair  play.  Even  "the  women 
now  went  willingly  into  the  field,  and  took  their  little  ones 
with  them  to  set  corn,  .  .  .  whom  to  have  compelled  would 
have  been  thought  tyranny  and  oppression." 


A.D.  1623.]  ADVERSITY    AND    TROGRESS.  381 

That  third  summer  was,  not  less  than  the  first  and  second, 
a  time  of  pinching  want.  Bradford  tells  ns  that  when  their 
corn  had  been  planted,  they  had  nothing  in  store  for  their 
subsistence.  "They  were  only  to  rest  on  God's  providence, 
many  times  not  knowing  at  night  where  to  have  a  bit  of  any 
thing  the  next  day.  And  so,  as  one  well  observed,  they  had 
need  to  pray  that  God  would  give  them  their  "daily  bread 
above  all  people  in  the  world."  "When  they  had  Indian 
corn,  they  thought  it  as  good  as  a  feast ;  but  sometimes,  for 
two  or  three  months  together,  they  had  neither  bread  nor 
any  kind  of  corn."  Their  boat  (for  at  this  time  they  had 
only  one)  was  constantly  employed  in  fishing,  the  men  taking 
their  turns  in  that  service ;  and"  when  the  boat  was  long  gone 
or  returned  unsuccessful,  all  were  busy  in  digging  clams 
from  the  sand  at  low  water.  Hunters  also,  one  or  two,  were 
continually  ranging  the  woods,  and  sometimes  a  deer  was 
brought  home  and  divided.  "Yet  they  bore  these  wants 
with  great  patience  and  alacrity  of  spirit ;"  and,  when  they 
had  nothing  to  eat  but  clams,  they  gave  thanks  to  God  who 
had  given  them  "of  the  abundance  of  the  seas  and  of  treas- 
ures hid  in  the  sand."  ^ 

In  that  time  of  want  they  had  other  discouragements. 
For  about  six  weeks  after  the  planting  of  their  corn  there 
was  no  refreshing  rain.  The  crop  on  which  they  had  be- 
stowed so  much  labor  seemed  likely  to  perish.  While  they 
were  thus  anxious,  they  received  discouraging  intelligence 
from  England.  A  ship,  the  Paragon^  with  supplies  for  the 
colony  and  with  passengers,  among  whom  were  many  of  their 
old  friends,  had  been  driven  back  by  tempests.  After  being 
repaired  at  great  cost  and  with  long  delay,  she  had  sailed 
again,  had  been  spoken  with  three  hundred  leagues  at  sea, 
had  been  lost  sight  of  in  a  storm,  and  had  not  since  been 
heard  of  Every  day  the  thought  that  she  might  have  foun- 
dered was  growing   more  painful  —  especially  as  signs  of  a 


Deut.  xxxiii,,  19. 

Cc 


382       GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

wreck  were  seen  on  the  coast.     It  seemed  to  them  as  if  God 
had  forsaken  them. 

In  these  circumstances  they  remembered  with  what  prayer 
and  fasting  they  had  sought  God's  favor  on  their  enterprise 
when  they  were  yet  at  Leyden.  Had  he  indeed  forsaken 
them  ?  Had  they  forsaken  him  ?  They  felt  themselves  call- 
ed, as  individuals  and  as  a  community,  to  humiliation  before 
God,  whom  in  other  days  they  had  sought  with  fasting  and 
prayer.  "  To  that  end,"  Winslow  tells  us,  "  a  day  was  ap- 
pointed (July)  by  public  authority,  and  set  apart  from  all 
other  employments,  in  hope  that  the  same  God  who  had 
stirred  us  up  hereunto  would  be  moved  hereby  in  mercy  to 
look  down  upon  us  and  grant  us  the  request  of  our  dejected 
souls,  if  our  continuance  there  might  any  way  stand  with 
his  glory  and  our  good."  It  was  not  reserved  for  the  philos- 
ophy of  the  nineteenth  century  to  deny,  for  the  first  time, 
that  prayer  has  any  place  among  the  forces  of  the  universe. 
Undevout  speculation,  before  science  or  history  began  to  be, 
could  ask  as  flippantly  as  now, "  What  is  the  Almighty,  that 
we  should  serve  him ;  and  what  profit  shall  we  have  if  wo 
pray  to  him  ?"  But  the  faith  which,  learning  by  spiritual 
intuitions,  recognizes  an  infinite  will  creating  and  sustaining 
all  things,  an  infinite  wisdom  ruling  the  worlds,  and  an  infi- 
nite love  accessible  to  human  supplication,  has  a  deeper  in- 
sight and  a  wider  outlook  than  mole-eyed  science,  groping 
among  material  atoms,  can  attain  to  while  refusing  to  ac- 
knowledge that  there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
than  microscope  or  telescope  reveals.  Till  faith  shall  fail 
from  the  earth,  and  the  intuitions  and  yearnings  which  gen- 
erate faith  shall  have  been  eliminated  from  the  human  soul, 
there  will  be  prayer — as  there  is  to-day  and  ever  has  been. 
Bradford  and  Winslow  knew,  as  well  as  any  modern  scientist, 
that  the  vapors,  rising  from  sea  and  land,  are  condensed  into 
clouds  and  come  down  again  in  rain ;  but  they  did  not  think 
it  reasonable  to  infer  from  the  laws  of  nature  the  uselessness 
of  prayer.     They  did  not  expect  the  rain  they  prayed  for 


A.D.1623.]  ADVERSITY    AND   PKOGEESS.  383 

would  come  without  clouds,  nor  that  clouds  would  come  out 
of  the  clear  northwest;  yet  they  prayed.  We  have  no  right 
to  suppose  that  they  hazarded  their  confidence  in  the  utility 
of  prayer  on  the  uncertainty  of  what  a  day  might  bring  forth  ; 
or  that,  should  their  fields  have  yielded  no  food,  they  would 
have  lost  their  faith  in  God.  Had  their  soil  become  powder 
and  dust  for  lack  of  rain,  they  would  nevertheless  have  ac- 
knowledged, even  in  the  ruin  of  their  hopes,  the  will  and  the 
wisdom  of  Him  to  whom  they  prayed.  Why,  then,  might 
they  not  acknowledge  the  Providence  that  relieved  them, 
and  accept  the  relief  as  God's  answer  to  their  prayer?  It  is 
folly  and  not  wisdom  that  sneers  or  smiles  at  their  simplic- 
ity when  they  say,  "  Oh,  the  mercy  of  our  God  !  who  was  as 
ready  to  hear  as  we  to  ask."  The  morning  of  their  fast-day 
was  clear  and  sultry,  with  no  sign  of  rain.  According  to  the 
Puritan  custom — and  they,  as  Separatists,  were  not  behind 
the  Puritans  in  that  respect — the  observance  of  such  a  day 
was  very  unlike  any  thing  that  now  takes  place  on  fast-day 
in  the  Puritan  metropolis  of  New  England.  That  morning 
the  Pilgrims  assembled  as  early,  probably,  as  nine  o'clock; 
and  their  "  exercise  "  of  prayer  and  appropriate  exhortation 
or  preaching  was  continued,  with  little  or  no  intermission, 
"  eight  or  nine  hours."  While  they  were  thus  assembled,  a 
change  came  over  the  face  of  the  sky ;  and,  when  they  de- 
parted, the  clouds  had  gathered  which,  the  next  morning, 
''distilled  soft,  sweet,  and  moderate  showers  of  rain,  contin- 
uing," with  some  intervals  of  fair  weather,  "fourteen  days." 
Their  gratitude  recorded  itself  in  the  phrase,  "It  was  hard  to 
say  whether  our  withered  corn  or  our  drooping  affections  were 
most  revived,  such  was  the  bounty  and  goodness  of  our  God." 
While  the  timely  rain  was  cheering  them.  Captain  Standish, 
who  had  been  sent  eastward  by  the  governor  to  purchase 
food,  returned  with  enough  for  a  temporary  relief,  so  that, 
for  a  few  days,  they  had  bread  of  some  sort  with  their  clams 
and  bass.  Then,  too,  came  letters  from  the  Adventurers,  an- 
nouncing  that  the  Paragon^  instead  of  foundering  in  the 


384       GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XYII. 

Storm,  had  been  driven  back,  and  had  arrived  at  Portsmouth, 
in  England,  with  their  friends  all  safe;  and  also  that,  about 
three  weeks  after  the  date  of  those  letters,  another  vessel, 
the  A7ine,  chartered  by  the  Adventurers,  was  to  sail  with 
sixty  passengers  and  sixty  tons  of  goods  for  the  colony.  In 
every  direction  the  prospect  was  brightening.  "  We  thought " 
— such  is  their  testimony — "it  would  be  great  ingratitude  if 
.  .  .  we  should  content  ourselves  with  private  thanksgiving. 
.  .  .  Therefore  another  solemn  day  was  set  apart  and  appoint- 
ed for  that  end,  wherein  we  returned  glory,  honor,  and  praise, 
with  all  thankfulness,  to  our  good  God  who  dealt  so  gra- 
ciously with  us — whose  name,  for  these  and  all  other  his  mer- 
cies toward  his  church  and  chosen  ones,  by  them  be  blessed 
and  praised,  now  and  evermore." 

About  two  weeks  intervened  between  their  reception  of 
the  intelligence  which  revived  their  hopes  and  the  expected 
arrival  of  the  Anne,  followed  a  few  days  later  by  the  Xit- 
tle  James^  "  a  fine  new  vessel  of  about  forty-four  tons,"  built 
for  the  colony,  and  to  remain  in  its  service.  The  two  had 
sailed  together,  but  had  been  separated  by  foul  weather.  It 
was  a  joyful  meeting  when  the  passengers  by  those  two  ves- 
sels arrived,  all  in  health  save  one  (who  soon  recovered),  and 
found,  notwithstanding  the  wants  and  hardships  which  the 
colony  was  enduring,  not  one  sick  person  in  Plymouth. 
Greetings  full  of  tender  memory  were  exchanged  among 
friends  who  had  parted,  three  years  before,  at  Delft-Haven 
or  at  Leyden.  Husbands  received  their  wives,  parents  their 
children ;  brothers  and  sisters  looked  each  other  in  the  face 
ngain  through  tears  of  mingling  joy  and  sadness.^      But  in 

^  Two  of  the  newly  arrived  were  daughters  of  Elder  Brewster.  Another 
was  the  wife  of  Deacon  Fuller,  the  physician.  Six  were  wives  of  men  who 
came  in  the  Fortune  or  the  Mayfiower.  George  Morton,  who  brought  with 
him  his  family  of  five  children,  was  also  accompanied  by  his  wife's  sister, 
Alice,  the  widow  of  Edward  Southworth.  A  few  days  after  her  arrival  she 
was  married  to  Governor  Bradford.  Her  maiden  name  was  Carpenter. 
Her  two  Southworth  sons,  honorably  represented  by  the  Southworths  of  to- 


A.D.  1623.]  ADVERSITY    AND   PEOGRESS.  385 

company  with  those  old  friends  from  Leyden,  were  others 
from  England  who  were  not  all  of  the  same  sort.  The  Ad- 
venturers, in  their  greed  for  early  profits,  and  in  their  igno- 
rance of  the  work  they  had  undertaken,  were  always  ready 
to  accept  as  competent  recruits  for  the  colony  men  whom 
the  Pilgrims  would  have  rejected  as  deficient  in  moral  char- 
acter. Some  of  that  sort  came  in  the  Fortune.  Some  had  been 
even  crowded  into  the  Mayflower.  So,  of  this  third  compa- 
ny, "  some  were  so  bad  "  that  the  government  of  the  colony 
was  "  fain  to  be  at  charge  to  send  them  home  again  next 
year."  Cushman,  who  was  still  in  England,  busy  as  ever  in 
the  great  enterprise,  had  made  earnest  but  ineffectual  pro- 
test against  the  heedlessness  of  the  Adventurers  in  this  re- 
spect. It  was  much  easier,  he  said,  to  enlist  recruits  for  the 
colony  than  to  raise  supplies.  "  People  come  flying  in  upon 
us ;  but  moneys  come  creeping  in  to  us.  Some  few  of  your 
old  friends  are  come,  .  .  .  and,  by  degrees,  I  hope  ere  long 
you  shall  enjoy  them  all.  And  because  people  press  so  hard 
upon  us  to  go,  I  pray  you  write  earnestly  to  the  treasurer 
and  direct  what  persons  should  be  sent.  It  grieveth  me  to 
see  so  weak  a  company  sent  you,  and  yet,  had  I  not  been 
here,  they  had  been  weaker.  You  must  still  call  upon  the 
Company  here  to  see  that  honest  men  be  sent  you,  and  threat- 
en to  send  them  back  if  any  other  come.  .  .  .  We  are  not  any 
way  so  much  in  danger  as  by  corrupt  and  naughty  persons." 
Bradford,  transcribing  the  letter  into  his  history,  left  un- 
named the  men  of  whom  Cushman  said,  They  "  came  without 
my  consent,  but  the  importunity  of  their  friends  got  prom- 
ise of  our  treasurer  in  my  absence.     Neither  is  there  need 

day,  came  over  perhaps  five  years  later.  The  fhmil}'  tradition  is  that  be- 
tween William  Bradford  and  Alice  Carpenter  there  had  been  in  their  early 
youth  some  disappointment  of  affection,  and  that  their  engagement  to  each 
other  was  made  by  correspondence  across  three  thousand  miles  of  ocean. 
Another  of  those  passengers  was  Barbara  (her  maiden  name  not  known),  who 
soon  became  tlie  wife  of  Captain  Standish,  whose  first  wife,  Rose,  "  died  in 
the  first  sickness." 


386       GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

we  should  take  any  lewd  men,  for  we  may  have  honest  men 
enough." 

The  new  colonists  saw  not  much  that  was,  at  the  first  view, 
encouraging.  "  Some  wished  themselves  in  England  again  ; 
some  fell  a-weeping,  fancying  their  own  misery  in  what  they 
saw ;  some  pitied  the  distress  they  saw  their  friends  were 
under" — in  a  word,  all  were  full  of  sadness.  Yet  some  who, 
at  Leyden,  had  been  familiar  with  penury  endured  for  Christ's 
sake,  rejoiced  not  only  to  see  their  old  friends,  but  also  to 
hope  with  them  that  "better  days"  were  coming.  By  a  few 
homely  details,  Bradford  makes  us  understand  in  what  ex- 
tremity of  need  those  Pilgrims  of  the  A7ine  found  the  sur- 
vivors of  the  3Iayflov^er  and  the  Fortune:  "They  were  in  a 
very  low  condition.  Many  were  ragged  in  apparel,  and  some 
little  better  than  half-naked  ;  though  some,"  who  had  brought 
with  them  a  full  supply  of  clothing,  "  were  well  enough  in  this 
regard.  But  for  food  they  were  all  alike,  save  some  that  had 
got  a  few  pease  of  the  ship  that  was  last  here.  The  best  dish 
they  could  present  their  friends  with  was  a  lobster,  or  a  piece 
offish,  without  bread,  or  any  thing  else  but  a  cup  of  fair  spring 
water.  The  long  continuance  of  this  diet,  and  their  labors 
abroad,"  in  the  summer  sunshine  of  New  England,  "had  some- 
what abated  the  freshness  of  their  former  complexion.  But 
God  gave  them  health  and  strength  in  a  good  measure,  and 
showed  them  by  experience  the  truth  of  that  word,  '  Man 
liveth  not  by  bread  only,  but  by  every  word  that  proceed- 
eth  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  doth  man  live.'"i 

A  letter  from  the  Adventurers,  subscribed  by  thirteen  of 
their  names,  expressed  an  undiminished  interest  in  the  colony 
as  a  religious  undertaking  :  "  Loving  friends,  we  most  heart- 
ily salute  you  in  all  love  and  hearty  afl^ection ;  being  yet  in 
hope  that  the  same  God  who  hath  hitherto  preserved  you  in 
a  marvelous  manner,  doth  yet  continue  your  lives  and  health 

^  Deut.  viii.,  3.  The  entire  verse  is  to  the  point :  "He  humbled  thee,  and 
suffered  thee  to  hunger,  and  fed  thee  with  manna,  which  thou  knewest  not, 
neither  did  thy  f.ithers  know  ;  that  he  might  make  thee  know  that,"  etc. 


A.D.  1623.]  ADVEKSITY   AND   PROGRESS.  38V 

to  his  own  praise  and  all  our  comforts.  .  .  .  We  would  not 
have  you  discontent,  because  we  have  not  sent  you  more  of 
your  old  friends,  and,  in  special,  him,"  Robinson,  "  on  whom 
you  most  depend.  Far  be  it  from  us  to  neglect  you  or  con- 
temn him.  But  as  the  intent  was  at  first,  so  the  event  at 
last  shall  show,  that  we  will  deal  fairly,  and  squarely  answer 
your  expectations  to  the  full.  .  .  .  Although  it  seemeth  you 
have  discovered  many  more  rivers  and  fertile  grounds  than 
that  where  you  are,  yet  seeing  by  God's  providence  that 
place  fell  to  your  lot,  let  it  be  accounted  as  your  portion ; 
and  rather  fix  your  eyes  upon  that  which  may  be  done  there, 
than  languish  in  hopes  after  things  elsewhere.  ...  If  the 
land  afibrd  you  bread  and  the  sea  yield  you  fish,  rest  you  a 
while  contented;  God  will  one  day  afibrd  you  better  fare. 
And  all  men  shall  know  that  you  are  neither  fugitives  nor 
discontents,  but  can,  if  God  so  order  it,  take  the  worst  to 
yourselves  with  content,  and  leave  the  best  to  your  neighbors 
with  cheerfulness.  Let  it  not  be  grievous  to  you  that  you 
have  been  instruments  to  break  the  ice  for  others  who  come 
after  with  less  difliculty.  The  honor  will  be  yours  to  the 
world's  end. 

"We  bear  you  always  in  our  breasts;  and  our  hearty  af- 
fection is  toward  you  all ;  as  are  the  hearts  of  hundreds  more 
who  never  saw  your  faces,  who  doubtless  pray  for  your  safety 
as  their  own — as  we  ourselves  both  do  and  ever  shall — that 
the  same  God  who  hath  so  marvelously  preserved  you  from 
seas,  foes,  and  famine,  will  still  preserve  you  from  all  future 
dangers,  and  make  you  honorable  among  men  and  glorious 
in  bliss  at  the  last  day.  And  so  the  Lord  be  with  you  all, 
and  send  us  joyful  news  from  you,  and  enable  us  with  one 
shoulder  so  to  accomplish  and  perfect  this  work  that  much 
glory  may  come  to  Him  that  confoundeth  the  mighty  by  the 
weak,  and  maketh  small  things  great — to  whose  greatness 
be  all  glory  forever." 

In  a  few  days,  the  An7ie  sailed  homeward  (Sept.  10  =  20) 
with  a  cargo  which  was  likely  to  encourage  the  Adventurers 


388        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVII. 

in  their  part  of  the  work.  Winslow  was  at  the  same  time 
sent  as  agent  for  the  colony,  to  confer  with  its  patrons,  and  to 
procure  either  from  tliem  or  by  other  means  such  things  as 
were  indispensable  to  its  progress.  "By  this  time  harvest 
was  come,"  the  yellow  corn  began  to  be  gathered  into  the 
granary ;  "  and  instead  of  famine  God  now  gave  them  plenty. 
The  face  of  things  was  changed,  to  the  rejoicing  of  the  hearts 
of  many,  for  which  they  blessed  God."  The  experiment  on 
which  they  had  ventured  contrary  to  the  letter  of  their  con- 
tract with  their  partners  in  London — the  allotment  of  lands 
for  that  year  to  families  or  to  individuals,  so  that  every  man 
might  work  for  himself,  instead  of  putting  his  labor  into  the 
common  stock — had  been  successful.  There  were  few,  if  any, 
who  had  not  enough,  "  one  way  and  another,  to  bring  the 
year  about,  and  some  of  the  abler  and  more  industrious  had 
to  spare."  Thenceforth  there  was  no  more  general  want  or 
famine  in  Plymouth.  Instead  of  buying  corn  from  the  In- 
dians, they  had  corn  to  sell  for  beaver  and  other  peltry. 

Once  more  the  apocalyptic  vision,^  so  often  illustrated  in 
the  progress  of  Messiah's  kingdom,  was  translating  itself  into 
history.  The  woman,  after  her  birth -pangs,  had  fled  from 
the  dragon  into  the  w^ilderness;  and  the  earth  had  begun  to 
help  the  woman.  Manifestly,  tlie  Pilgrim  colony,  so  devoutly 
imagined  and  planned  at  Leyden,  had  become  a  fact.  Chris- 
tianity had  obtained  in  New  England  "  a  place  prepared  of 
God."  The  Church  of  Christ  was  here  in  the  simplest  pos- 
sible organization,  separating  itself  alike  from  the  great  apos- 
tasy ruled  by  the  Roman  pontiif,  and  from  the  anomalous  in- 
stitution set  up  in  England  by  the  imperious  will  of  Eliza- 
beth Tudor,  and  was  building  itself  "  on  the  foundation  of 
the  apostles  and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the 
chief  corner-stone."  ^ 

It  disowned  the  claim  of  the  princes  of  this  world  to  rule 
in  that  kingdom  which  is  not  of  this  woi-ld.     It  permitted 

1  Rev.  xii.  ^Ei)hAl,20. 


A.D.  1623.]  ADVEKSITY    AND   PROGRESS.  389 

no  priestly  intervention  between  the  redeemed  soul  and  its 
divine  Redeemer.  It  was  simply  "the  communion  of  tlie 
saints;"  the  free  and  loving  fellowship  of  those  whom  Christ 
had  made  "  kings  and  priests  unto  God ;"  the  spontaneous 
association  of  believers  for  united  worship,  for  mutual  hcl])- 
fulness  in  holy  living,  and  for  strength  to  labor  or  to  suffer 
in  the  service  of  God. 


390         GENESIS  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CHUKCHES.     [CH.  XVIII. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM   AGAINST   THE    PILGRIM    CHURCH. 

The  success  of  the  few  exiles  who  had  migrated  from 
Leyden  to  America  was  beginning  to  take  effect  in  England. 
For  a  long  time  there  had  been  in  English  minds  the  hope 
arid  the  scheme  of  a  colonial  empire  beyond  the  ocean.  Cap- 
ital and  labor  had  been  lavishly  expended  in  Virginia ;  and 
the  settlements  there,  after  many  disasters,  were  just  begin- 
ning to  have  some  appearance  of  prosj^erity.  But  the  at- 
tempt, simultaneous  with  the  founding  of  Jamestown  (1607), 
to  establish  a  colony  in  North  Virginia,  afterward  named 
New  England,  had  failed  in  less  than  a  year,  though  magnif- 
icently patronized.  Weston's  more  recent  attempt  had  been 
more  ignominiously  unsuccessful.  Such  failures  made  the 
success  of  the  settlement  at  Plymouth  more  conspicuous.^ 

Sir  Ferdinand  Gorges,  who  had  always  been  the  life  of 
King  James's  "  Council  for  New  England,"  was  encouraged 
to  hope  that  the  dominion  which  the  royal  charter  had  given 
to  that  council  might  soon  become  something  more  than  a 
name.  Hitherto  the  imperial  powers  of  that  august  body 
had  been  chiefly  productive  of  fruitless  attempts  to  impose 
tribute  on  the  fishing  vessels  which  resorted  to  the  coast; 
but  while  Plymouth  was  struggling  through  its  third  sum- 

^  Captain  John  Smith,  in  his  "  New  England's  Trials,"  1622,  had  briefly  de- 
scribed the  beginning  and  already  hopeful  progress  of  the  Plymouth  colony. 
The  same  year  there  was  published  the  invaluable  document  commonly  cited 
as  "Mourt's  Relation,"  but  identified  and  republished  by  Young  ("Chron- 
icles of  the  Pilgrims,"  p.  109,  sq.)  as  "  Bradford  and  Winslow's  Journal,"  with 
a  preface  by  George  Morton.  Cushman's  "  Sermon,"  with  a  glowing  pref- 
ace, descriptive  of  New  England  and  inviting  emigration,  is  of  the  same 
date.     Winslow's  "Good  News  from  New  England"  was  published  in  1624. 


A.D.1623.]  ATTEMPTS    OF   NATIONALISM.  391 

mer  (July,  1623),  there  came  into  its  harbor  a  ship  with  a 
captain  on  board,  "  who  had  a  commission  to  be  Admiral  of 
New  England."  About  two  months  later,  Captain  Robert 
Gorges,  son  of  Sir  Ferdinand,  came  with  a  commission  to  be 
Governor-General  of  the  country.  Arriving  "  in  the  bay  of 
the  Massachusetts  with  sundry  passengers  and  families,"  he 
attempted  to  make  another  beginning  at  the  place  which 
Weston's  men  had  so  recently  forsaken  (Sept.,  1623).  The 
plan  for  a  general  government  over  all  the  territory  granted 
to  the  Council  for  New  England  acknowledged  the  existence 
and  in  some  sort  the  autonomy  of  Plymouth,  inasmuch  as 
the  governor  of  that  colony  for  the  time  being  was  to  be, 
by  virtue  of  his  office,  one  of  the  Governor-General's  council. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  seems  to  have  assumed  that  the 
ecclesiastical  authority  which  prescribed  and  controlled  the 
religion  of  England  was  to  have  the  same  sway  in  New  En- 
gland. Accordingly,  the  great  Council  took  care  for  the  re- 
ligious w^eltare  of  the  expedition  led  forth  by  Governor-Gen- 
eral Gorges.  There  was  in  his  suite  a  chaplain,  who  w^as  not 
only  charged  with  the  care  of  souls  in  the  renewed  planta- 
tion at  Wessagusset,  but  was  also  expected  to  have  some 
sort  of  superintendence  over  the  Separatists  of  Plymouth. 
He  found,  however,  no  opportunity  of  asserting  his  jurisdic- 
tion ;  nor  does  he  seem  to  have  had  any  disposition  to  do  so. 
Gorges,  "not  finding  the  state  of  things  here  to  answer  his 
quality  and  condition,"  returned  to  England  (1624)  after  the 
experience  of  one  winter  in  the  country  which  he  had  under- 
taken to  govern.  Planting  colonies  in  such  a  wilderness  was 
not  the  agreeable  employment  which  he,  the  son  of  Sir  Fer- 
dinand, "being  newly  come  out  of  the  Venetian  war,"  had 
hoped  for.  His  departure  was,  in  effect,  the  breaking  up  of 
his  attempted  colony.  Some  of  the  people  whom  he  had 
brought  followed  him  to  England;  others  went  to  Virginia; 
a  few  "  remained  and  were  helped  with  supplies  "  from  Plym- 
outh. Among  the  few  was  the  chaplain,  whose  conduct  in 
relation  to  the  Plymouth  people  seems  to  have  been  such  as 


392       GENESIS   OF  THE   NEAV   ENGLAND   CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVIII. 

gave  them  no  offense.  He  was  a  man  of  culture  and  of  po- 
etic sensibility.  Enamored  of  the  natural  beauty  which  ho 
saw  in  New  England,  he  recorded  his  observations  on  the 
country  in  a  Latin  poem  which,  with  a  free  translation  of  it 
into  less  polished  English  verse,  seems  to  have  been  his  chief 
employment  here.^  After  another  year,  he  also  returned  to 
England  (1625),  his  office  at  Wessagusset  having  become  a 
sinecure.  Bradford  says  of  him,  as  if  with  an  unconscious 
smile,  "  He  had  I  know  not  what  power  and  authority  of  su- 
perintendency  over  other  churches  granted  him,  and  sundry 
instructions  for  that  end ;  but  he  never  showed "  his  com- 
mission "  or  made  any  use  of  it  (it  should  seem  he  saw  it 
was  in  vain) ;  he  only  spoke  of  it  to  some  here  at  his  going 
away." 

So  ended  that  attempt  to  introduce  Nationalism,  or  the 
national-church  theory  of  Christianity,  into  New  England. 
The  Separatists  of  Scrooby,  the  exiles  of  Leyden,  the  Pil- 
grims of  the  3Iayflmoe7\  had  brought  with  them  a  theory 
which  permitted  neither  king  nor  parliament  to  rule  in  the 
Church  of  Christ.  For  them  the  wilderness  and  solitary 
place  were  beginning  to  be  glad,  and  it  was  not  in  the  book 
of  God's   decrees  that  the   system  which  had  driven  them 

^  That  bi-lingiial  poem  was  published  after  the  author's  return  to  England. 
It  may  be  found  entire  in  the  first  series  of  the  Mass.  Historical  Society's 
Collections,  i.,  1 25-139.     He  thus  describes  .he  "  ground-nut,"  so  often  men- 
tioned by  Bradford  and  Winslow,  the  Apios  tuberosa  of  the  botanists: 
"Vimine  gramineo  nux  subterranea  suavis 
Serpit  humi,  tenui  flavo  sub  cortice  pingui 
Et  placido  nucleo  nivei  candoris  ab  intra 
Melliflua  parcos  hilarans  dulcedine  gustus 
Donee  in  sestivum  Phoebus  conscenderit  axem.'' 

In  English : 

"  A  ground-nut  there  runs  on  a  grassy  thread 
Along  tlie  shallow  earth  as  in  a  bed ; 
Yellow  without,  thin-film'd,  sweet,  lily-white, 
Of  strength  to  feed  and  cheer  the  appetite." 


A. D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  393 

into  banishment  sliould  follow  them  hither.     Apparitors  and 
pursuivants,  acts  of  uniformity  and  bishops'  prisons,  commis- 


sar 


courts  and  Hicrh  Commission,  found  no  entrance  on  this 


side  of  the  ocean,  though  so  gentle  and  genial  a  man  as  Will- 
iam Morrell  had  been  sent  to  prepare  the  way  for  them. 

Another  attempt  against  Separatism  in  New  England  was 
already  in  progress  from  a  very  different  quarter.  Before 
the  coming  over  of  Gorges  with  his  planters  of  a  new  col- 
ony, and  with  his  state-church  chaplain,  the  Pilgrims  were 
aware  of  disagreements  and  complaints  among  the  Advent- 
urers, thougli  Weston  was  no  longer  a  partner  in  the  Com- 
pany. For  that  reason  the  friendly  letter  which  came  to 
them  by  the  Aniie^  with  thirteen  names  of  the  Adventurers 
subscribed,  was  the  more  welcome,  especially  because  of  the 
regard  which  it  expressed  for  their  "  old  friends  "  and  their 
pastor  still  detained  at  Leyden.^  But  the  full  significance 
of  that  letter  became  painfully  apparent  when  Winslow  re- 
turned from  his  mission  in  England  (March,  1624).  He  came 
in  the  ship  Charity^  which  brought  supplies  for  the  colony,' 
together  with  some  passengers  whose  names  will  appear  in 
our  story.  By  the  same  vessel  came  letters  which,  even 
without  his  report  of  what  he  had  himself  observed,  revealed 
the  fact  that  among  the  Adventurers  there  was  a  strong  and 
active  party  adverse  to  the  Pilgrim  church. 

James  Sherley,  one  of  the  Adventurers,  and  "  a  chief  friend 
of  the  colony,"  wrote  to  his  "  most  worthy  and  loving  friends," 
and  explained  to  them  the  difficulties  which  had  embar- 
rassed "  the  setting  forth  of  this  ship :"  "  We  have  some 
among  us  who  undoubtedly  aim  more  at  their  own  private 
ends,  and  at  the  thwarting  and  opposing  of  some  here 
and  other  worthy  instruments  of  God's  glory  elsewhere " 
(referring  especially  to  Leyden  and  to  Robinson),  "than  at 
the  general  good  and  the  furtherance  of  this  noble  and  laud- 

'  .4«/e,  p.  386,  387. 

-  '"He  brought  three  heifers  and  a  bull,  the  first  beginning  of  any  cattle 
of  that  kind  in  the  land,  with  some  clothing  and  other  necessaries." 


394       GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW   ENGLAND  CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVIII. 

able  action.  Yet  again  we  have  many  other,  and  I  hope  the 
greater  part,  very  honest  Christian  men,  whose  ends  and  in- 
tents (I  am  persuaded)  are  wholly  for  tlie  glory  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  in  the  propagation  of  his  Gospel,  and  hope  of 
gaining  those  poor  savages  to  the  knowledge  of  God.  But .  . . 
these  malcontented  persons  and  turbulent  spirits  do  what 
in  them  lieth  to  withdraw  men's  hearts  from  you  and  your 
friends,  yea,  even  from  the  general  business ;  and  yet  under 
show  and  pretense  of  godliness  and  furtherance  of  the  plan- 
tation." After  describing  some  of  their  contentions,  the  let- 
ter ended- with  a  more  cheerful  view,  "On  the  12th  of  Jan- 
uary, ...  at  night,  when  we  met  to  read  the  general  letter,  we 
had  the  lovingest  and  friendliest  meeting  that  ever  I  knew. 
...  So  I  sent  for  a  pottle  of  wine  (I  would  you  could  do 
the  like^),  which  we  drank  friendly  together.  Thus  God  can 
turn  the  hearts  of  men  when  it  pleaseth  him."  Sherley  did 
not  then  knoAv  the  reason  why  that  meeting  appeared  to  be 
so  "  loving  and  friendly."  The  faction  opposed  to  Leyden 
and  to  Robinson  had  taken  measures  which,  they  thought, 
would  guard  the  colony  and  New  England  against  the 
growth  of  Separatism. 

Already  the  Adventurers  had  introduced  into  the  colony 
an  element  which  could  hardly  fail  to  work  disturbance.  Be- 
sides the  sixty  in  the  Anne^  who  were  under  the  same  en- 
gagement to  the  Adventurers  with  the  original  Planters,''^ 
"there  came  a  company  that  did  not  belong  to  the  general 
body,  but  came  on  their  particular,  and  were  to  have  lands 
assigned  them  and  be  for  themselves,  yet  subject  to  the  gen- 

-  Bradford  says  in  a  note  appended  to  his  transcript  of  the  letter:  "It  is 
worthy  to  be  observed  how  the  Lord  doth  change  times  and  things ;  for  what 
is  now  more  plentiful  than  wine  ?  and  that  of  the  best,  coming  from  Malaga, 
the  Canaries,  and  other  places,  sundry  ships  lading  in  a  year.  So  as  there 
is  now  more  cause  to  complain  of  the  excess  and  the  abuse  of  wine  (through 
men's  corruption),  even  to  drunkenness,  than  of  any  defect  or  want  of  the 
same.  Witness  this  year  1G4G.  The  good  Lord  lay  not  the  sins  and  un- 
thankfulness  of  men  to  their  charge  in  this  particular." 

2  Ante,  p.  282,  283. 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  395 

eral  government."  Those  privileged  planters  were  received 
without  remonstrance,  two  things  having  been  stipulated 
by  the  Adventurers  in  sending  them :  first,  that  the  entire 
trade  in  peltry  should  be  retained  "  for  the  general "  till  the 
dissolution  of  the  partnership,  and  the  final  division  of  its 
property ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  assignment  of  lands  to 
those  who  "  came  on  their  particular  "  should  be  at  such  con- 
venient distance  from  the  town  as  would  not  interfere  with 
the  laying  out  of  lands  to  be  cultivated  by  the  community. 
Some  of  those  persons  Avere  disappointed,  having  "looked  for 
greater  matters  than  they  found  or  could  attain  to."  Sev- 
eral of  them  took  the  first  opportunity  of  returning  to  En- 
gland— "some  out  of  discontent  and  dislike  of  the  country; 
others  by  reason  of  a  fire  that  broke  out  and  burned  the 
houses  they  lived  in,  and  all  their  provisions,  so  as  they  were 
necessitated  thereunto."  ^  Naturally  they  carried  back  an  ill 
report.  Some,  also,  of  the  men  whom  Bradford  had  found 
too  lazy,  or  otherwise  worthless,  and  had  sent  home  for  that 
reason,  gave  out  malicious  stories  in  disparagement  of  Plym- 
outh. Sherley's  letter  was  accompanied  with  a  summing  up 
of  the  things  which  were  said  against  the  colony.  "These," 
said  he,  "  are  the  chief  objections  which  they  that  are  now 
returned  make  against  you  and  the  country.  I  pray  you 
consider  them,  and  answer  them  by  the  first  conveniency." 
Bradford,  in  his  "History,"  sets  them  down  at  full  length, 
with  the  answers  which  he  sent  by  the  return  of  the  vessel. 
Some  of  the  objections  to  the  country  are  absurd  enough  to 
be  amusing,  and  the  answers  are  appreciative.  One  objec- 
tion was, "  The  water  is  not  wholesome."  The  reply  was,  "  If 
they  mean,  not  so  wholesome  as  the  good  beer  and  wine  in 
London,  which  they  so  dearly  love,  we  will  not  dispute  with 
them  ;  but  .  .  .  for  water,  it  is  as  good  as  any  in  the  world 

^  "This  fire  was  occasioned  by  some  of  the  seamen  [of  Gorges's  ship]  that 
were  roistering  in  a  house  where  it  began,  making  a  great  fire  in  very  cold 
weather  [Nov.  5  =  15],  which  broke  out  of  the  chimney  into  the  thatch  and 
burned  down  three  or  four  houses." 


396         GEXESIS   OF  THE   NEW  ENGLAND   CHUECHES.      [CH.  XVIII. 

(for  aught  we  know),  and  it  is  wholesome  enough  to  us  that 
can  be  content  therewitli."  To  another  objection,  "  The 
ground  is  barren,  and  doth  bear  no  grass,"  Bradford  an- 
swered that  woods,  even  in  England,  do  not  yield  such  grass 
as  grows  in  fields  and  meadows ;  that  the  cattle  imported  by 
the  Charity  were  already  thriving  on  the  native  grass;  and 
that,  to  all  who  had  eyes  to  see,  that  objection,  like  some 
of  the  rest,  was  simply  "  ridiculous."  Somebody  had  been 
foolish  enough  to  say,  "The  fish"  of  New  England  "will  not 
take  salt  to  keep  sweet,"  and  others  had  been  weak  enough 
to  think  it  might  be  true;  to  which  Bradford  replied,  "They 
might  as  well  say  there  can  no  ale  or  beer  in  London  be 
kept  from  souring."  A  less  absurd  objection  was  that  the 
country  was  "annoyed  with  foxes  and  wolves;"  but  this  was 
disposed  of  by  a  simple  reference  to  "  other  good  countries  " 
annoyed  in  the  same  way,  and  to  the  efficacy  of  "  poisons, 
traps,  and  other  such  means"  for  the  destruction  of  preda- 
tory animals.  "  The  Dutch,"  too,  were  already  "  planted  near 
Hudson's  River," ^  and  (worse  than  foxes  and  wolves)  might 
become  rivals  in  trade.  But  Bradford  had  learned,  at  Leyden, 
to  think  kindly  of  the  Dutch  instead  of  fearing  them,  and 
his  reply  was,  "  They  will  come  and  plant  in  these  parts  also, 
if  we  and  others  do  not,  but  go  home  and  leave  it  to  them.  We 
rather  commend  them  than  condemn  them  for  it."  Of  "ob- 
jections against  the  country,"  the  last,  and  not  the  least  for- 
midable, was,  "The  people  are  much  annoyed  with  mosqui- 
toes;" to  which  it  was  answered,  "They  are  too  delicate  and 
unfit  to  begin  new  plantations  and  colonies  who  can  not  en- 
dure the  biting  of  a  mosquito.  We  would  wish  such  to  keep 
at  home  till  they  be  at  least  mosquito-proof  Yet  this  place 
is  as  free  as  any ;  and  experience  teacheth  that  the  more 
the  land  is  tilled  and  the  woods  cut  down,  the  fewer  there 
will  be."     Such  "  objections  against  the  country"  were,  how- 

'  "Hudson's  Bay'"  in  Bradford;  but  the  reference  is  evidently  to  the 
Dutch  attempts  at  settlement  on  the  Hudson  Kiver. 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  397 

ever,  of  small  account  when  oompared  with  objections  which 
had  been  urged  against  the  colony  itself  on  the  ground  of 
its  religious  character,  and  which  were  therefore  placed  at 
the  head  of  the  catalogue  :  "  Diversity  about  religion  ;" 
"Neglect  of  fomily  duties  on  the  Lord's  day;"  "Want  of 
both  the  sacraments  ;"  "  Children  not  catechized  nor  taught 
to  read." 

Evidently  these  were  Puritan  objections  against  a  colony 
characterized  by  Separatist  principles  and  tendencies.  One 
by  one  they  were  answered,  curtly  but  explicitly.  As  for 
diversity  about  religion,  "  We  know  no  such  matter ;  for  here 
was  never  any  controversy  or  opposition,  either  public  or 
private  (to  our  knowledge),  since  we  came."  As  for  neg- 
lect of  family  duties  on  the  Lord's  day,  "  We  allow  no  such 
thing,  but  blame  it  in  ourselves  and  others;  and  they  that 
thus  report  it  would  have  showed  their  Christian  love  the 
more  if  they  had  in  love  told  the  offenders  of  it,  rather  than 
thus  reproach  them  beliind  their  backs.  But  (to  say  no 
more)  we  wish  themselves  had  given  better  example."  Ad- 
mitting their  want  of  both  the  sacraments,  they  took  occa- 
sion to  remonstrate  against  the  wrong  they  were  suffering  in 
that  respect :  "  The  more  is  our  grief  that  our  pastor  is  kept 
from  us,  by  whom  we  might  enjoy  them  ;  for  we  used  to 
have  the  Lord's  Supper  every  Sabbath,  and  baptism  as  often 
as  there  was  occasion  of  children  to  baptize."  To  the  cruel 
charge  that  their  children  were  not  catechized  nor  taught 
to  read,  they  answered,  "  Xcither  is  true  ;  for  divers  take 
pains  with  their  own  as  they  can.  We  have,  indeed,  no  com- 
mon school,  for  want  of  a  fit  person,  or  (hitherto)  means  to 
maintain  one,  though  we  desire  now  to  begin."  A  "com- 
mon school"  —  public  as  the  highway  —  was  in  their  plan 
and  purpose,  even  when  they  were  just  emerging  from  their 
long  conflict  with  starvation,  and  when  their  entire  number 
— men,  w^omen,  and  children — did  not  exceed  one  hundred 
and  eighty. 

It  was  the  reli2;ious  condition  of  those  Separatists  at  Plym- 
D  D 


398         GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW   ENGLAND  CHURCHES.      [CH.  XVIII. 

outh,  waiting  and  longing  for  their  Separatist  pastor,  that 
weighed  so  heavily  on  the  minds  of  Puritans  among  the  Ad- 
venturers. But  before  that  "  lovingest  and  friendliest  meet- 
ing" which  so  delighted  Sherley,  they  had  engaged  a  cler- 
gyman to  go  over  among  the  passengers  on  the  Charity^  and 
they  were  trusting  that  his  ministrations,  if  the  Brownist 
Robinson  could  still  be  detained  at  Leyden,  would  supply  the 
religious  destitution  of  Plymouth,  and  contribute  something 
to  the  ecclesiastical  future  of  New  England.  It-must  not  be 
supposed  that  they  knew  the  man  whom  they  were  sending 
on  a  mission  so  delicate  and  so  important.  John  Lyford 
had  lately  returned  from  Ireland.  In  that  country  he  had 
"  wound  himself  into  the  esteem  of  sundry  godly  and  zealous 
professors,  .  .  .  who,  having  been  burdened  with  the  cere- 
monies in  England,  found  there  some  more  liberty  to  their 
consciences."  The  reasons,  not  yet  divulged,  which  had  con- 
strained him  to  forego  the  liberty  enjoyed  by  Puritans  in 
Ireland,  were  such  as  might  naturally  induce  him  to  accept 
an  employment  in  some  distant  colony.  Having  "  wound 
himself  into  the  esteem  of  sundry  godly  and  zealous  profess- 
ors" in  the  company  of  Adventurers,  it  was  thought  by  them 
that  he  might  also  wind  himself  into  the  esteem  of  the  god- 
ly though  wrongheaded  people  at  Plymouth,  and  counteract 
the  undesirable  influence  of  John  Robinson.  Cushman,  who 
was  still  in  England,  at  w^ork  with  all  his  might  for  the  col- 
ony, seems  to  have  given  a  reluctant  assent  to  the  sending 
of  Lyford.  He  knew  how  the  Pilgrims  longed  for  a  minister 
who  would  accept,  as  Brewster  would  not,  the  office  of  a 
teaching  elder,  and  who  might  be  associated  with  their  pas- 
tor in  the  care  of  the  church  ;  and,  in  his  enthusiastic  hopeful- 
ness, he  might  easily  persuade  himself  that  this  preacher,  at 
the  worst,  would  do  no  harm.  In  a  letter  to  the  governor, 
he  said:  "The  preacher  we  have  sent  is,  we  hope,  an  hon- 
est, plain  man,  though  none  of  the  most  eminent  and  rare. 
About  choosing  him  into  office,  use  your  own  liberty  and  dis- 
cretion.    He  knows  he  is  no  officer  among  you,  though  per- 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  399 

haps  custom  and  universality  may  make  him  forget  himself. 
Mr.  Winslow  and  myself  gave  way  to  his  going,  to  give  con- 
tent to  some  here  ;  and  we  see  no  hurt  in  it,  but  only  his 
great  charge  of  children."  Evidently  both  Winslow,  who 
was  to  be  a  fellow-passenger  with  Lyford,  and  Cushman,  who 
was  to  remain  in  England,  had  some  suspicion  of  a  sinister 
design,  but  were  confident  of  the  ability  of  the  church  to 
hold  fast  its  principle  of  congregational  independence. 

Two  letters  from  the  beloved  pastor  in  Ley  den  came  by 
the  Charity^  one  to  Bradford,  the  other  to  Brewster.  Robin- 
son had  his  own  means  of  information  concerning  the  fac- 
tions among  the  Adventurers ;  and  his  statements  bring  into 
clear  light  the  fact  that  it  was  Puritanism  which  was  so  cru- 
elly pertinacious  in  keeping  him  away  from  the  place  where 
all  his  hopes,  this  side  of  heaven,  were  centred.  To  Brad- 
ford he  wrote  (1623,  Dec.  19^:29): 

"My  loving  and  much- beloved  Feiend,  whom  God 
hath  hitherto  preserved,  [may  he]  preserve  and  keep  you  still 
to  his  glory  and  the  good  of  many;  that  his  blessing  may 
make  your  godly  and  wise  endeavors  answerable  to  the  val- 
uation which  they  there  [in  Plymouth]  set  upon  the  same. 
Of  your  love  to  and  care  for  us  here  we  never  doubted ;  so 
are  we  glad  to  take  knowledge  of  it  in  that  fullness  we  do. 
Our  love  and  care  to  and  for  you  is  mutual;  though  our 
hopes  of  coming  unto  you  be  small  and  weaker  than  ever. 
But  of  this  at  large  in  Mr.  Brewster's  letter,  with  whom  you 
— and  he  with  you  mutually — I  know,  communicate  your 
letters,  as  I  desire  you  may  do  these. 

"  Concerning  the  killing  of  those  poor  Indians,^  of  which 
we  heard  at  first  by  report,  and  since  by  more  certain  rela- 
tion, oh !  how  happy  a  thing  had  it  been  if  you  had  convert- 
ed some  before  you  had  killed  any !  Besides,  where  blood 
is  once  begun  to  be  shed,  it  is  seldom  stanched  of  a  long 

^  Ante^  J).  378. 


400       GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.      [CH.XVIII. 

time  after.  You  will  say  they  deserved  it.  I  grant  it;  but 
upon  what  provocations  and  invitenients  by  those  heathenish 
Cliristians!  Besides,  you,  being  no  magistrates  over  them, 
were  to  consider  not  what  they  deserved,  but  what  you  were 
by  necessity  constrained  to  inflict.  Necessity  of  this,  es- 
pecially of  killing  so  many  (and  many  more,  it  seems,  they 
would  if  they  could),  I  see  not.  Methinks  one  or  two  prin- 
cipals should  have  been  full  enough,  according  to  that  ap- 
proved rule,  'The  punishment  to  the  few,  and  the  fear  to  the 
many.'  Upon  this  occasion,  let  me  be  bold  to  exhort  you 
seriously  to  consider  the  disposition  of  your  captain,  whom  I 
love,  and  am  persuaded  the  Lord  in  great  mercy  and  for 
much  good  hath  sent  you  him,  if  you  use  him  aright.  He  is 
a  man  humble  and  meek  among  you,  and  toward  all,  in  or- 
dinary course.  But  now,  if  this  be  merely  from  a  human 
spirit,^  there  is  cause  to  fear  that,  by  occasion  especially  of 
provocation,  there  may  be  wanting  that  tenderness  of  the 
life  of  man,  made  after  God's  image,  which  is  meet.  It  is 
also  a  thing  more  glorious  in  men's  eyes  than  pleasing  in 
God's  or  convenient  for  Christians,  to  be  a  terror  to  poor  bar- 
barous people,  and,  indeed,  I  am  afraid  lest,  by  these  occa- 
sions, others  should  be  drawn  to  afiect  a  kind  of  rufliing 
course  in  the  world. 

"I  doubt  not  but  you  will  take  in  good  part  these  things 
which  I  write,  and,  as  there  is  cause,  make  use  of  them.  It 
were  to  us  more  comfortable  and  convenient  that  we  com- 
municated our  mutual  helps  in  presence,  but  seeing  that  can 
not  be  done,  we  shall  always  long  after  you,  and  love  you, 
and  wait  God's  appointed  time.  The  Adventurers,  it  seems, 
have  neither  money  nor  any  great  mind  of  us,  for  the  most 
part.     They  deny  it  to  be  any  part  of  the  covenants  between 

1  What  Eobinson  means  is:  "If  the  captain's  humbleness  and  meekness, 
and  the  traits  for  which  we  love  him,  are  not  inspired  and  sanctified  by  the 
divine  Spirit,  there  is  cause  to  fear,"  etc.  IStandish,  much  as  the  Pilgrims 
loved  and  honored  him,  and  devoted  as  he  was  to  their  heroic  enterprise,  was 
not  a  member  of  their  church. 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  401 

US  that  they  should  transport  us;  neither  do  I  look  for  any 
further  help  from  them,  till  means  come  from  you.  We  here 
are  strangers,  in  efiect,  to  the  whole  course ;  and  so  both  we 
and  you  (save  as  your  own  wisdom  and  worth  have  interest- 
ed you  further),  [instead]  of  [being]  principals,  [as  was]  in- 
tended, in  this  business,  are  scarce  accessories. 

"My  wife,  with  me,  resalutes  you  and  yours.  Unto  Him 
who  is  the  same  to  his  in  all  places,  and  near  to  them  who 
are  far  from  one  another,  I  commend  you  and  all  with  you." 

While  the  almost  despairing  sadness  of  this  letter  touches 
our  sympathy,  its  tenderly  affectionate  and  Christian  spirit, 
and  its  wise  but  gentle  admonitions,  show  what  the  writer's 
influence  Avould  have  been  could  he  have  had  the  privilege 
— for  wdiich  his  heart  was  ready  to  break — of  living  and 
dying  among  the  friends  who  longed  for  his  presence.  His 
hopes  of  coming  to  New  England  are  "small  and  weaker 
than  ever."  The  majority  of  the  Adventurers,  "it  seems," 
have  no  money  to  expend  in  reinforcing  their  colony  with 
such  people  as  those  exiles  left  at  Leyden,  "  nor  any  great 
mind"  if  they  had  the  money.  Nay,  they  deny  that  any 
obligation  of  that  sort  was  implied  in  the  contract  between 
themselves  and  the  Pilgrims.  For  explanation  of  these  hints, 
the  w^riter  makes  express  reference  to  a  letter  of  one  day's 
later  date,  addressed  to  an  older  and  more  intimate  friend, 
his  co-presbyter  Brewster: 

"Loving  and  dear  Friend  and  Brother, — That  which  I 
most  desired  of  God  in  regard  of  you,  namely,  the  continuance 
of  your  life  and  health,  and  the  safe  coming  of  those  sent  unto 
you,  I  most  gladly  hear  of,  and  praise  God  for  the  same. 
And  I  hope  Mrs.  Brewster's  weak  and  decayed  state  of  body 
will  have  some  repairing  by  the  coming  of  her  daughters,^ 
and  the  provision  wliicli,  I  liear,  is  made  for  you  in  this  and 

-  Ante,  ]).  38t. 


402         GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW   ENGLAND   CHUKOHES.      [CH,  XVIII. 

former  ships,  which  makes  us  with  more  patience  bear  our 
languishing  state  and  the  deferring  of  our  desired  transporta- 
tion— desired  rather  than  hoped  for,  whatsoever  you  are 
borne  in  hand  by  any  others.  For,  first,  there  is  no  hope  at 
all  (that  I  know  or  can  conceive  of)  of  any  new  stock  to  be 
raised  for  that  end,  so  that  all  must  depend  upon  returns 
from  you,  in  which  are  so  many  uncertainties  that  nothing 
with  any  certainty  can  thence  be  concluded.  Besides,  how- 
soever for  the  present  the  Adventurers  allege  nothing  but 
want  of  money,  which  is  an  invincible  difficulty,  yet,  if  that 
be  taken  away  by  you,  others  without  doubt  will  be  found. 

"  For  the  better  clearing  of  this,  we  must  dispose  the  Ad- 
venturers into  three  parts.  (1.)  Some  five  or  six,  as  I  con- 
ceive, are  absolutely  bent  for  us  above  any  others.  (2.) 
Other  five  or  six  are  our  bitter,  professed  adversaries.  (3.) 
The  rest,  being  the  body,  I  conceive  to  be  honestly  minded, 
and  lovingly  also,  toward  us,  yet  such  as  have  others,  name- 
ly, the  forward  preachers,  nearer  unto  them  than  us  [than  we 
are],  and  whose  course,  so  far  as  there  is  any  difierence,  they 
would  rather  advance  than  ours.  Now  what  a  hank  [hold] 
these  men  have  over  the  professors,  you  know.  And  I  per- 
suade myself  that  for  me,  they  of  all  others  are  unwilling  I 
should  be  transported — especially  such  as  have  an  eye  that 
way  themselves ;  as  thinking,  if  I  come  there,  their  market 
will  be  marred  in  many  regards.  And  for  these  adversaries, 
if  they  have  but  half  the  wit  to  their  malice  [i.  e.,  half  as 
much  wit  as  malice],  they  will  stop  my  course  when  they  see 
it  intended,  for  which  this  delaying  serveth  them  very  op- 
portunely. And  as  one  restie  [restive]  jade  can  hinder,  by 
lianging  back,  more  than  two  or  three  can  (or  will,  at  least, 
if  they  be  not  very  free)  draw  forward,  so  will  it  be  in  this 
case.  A  notable  experiment  of  this  they  gave  in  your  mes- 
senger's presence,  constraining  the  Company  to  promise  that 
none  of  the  money  now  gathered  should  be  expended  or 
employed  to  the  help  of  any  of  us  toward  you. 

"  Now  touching  the  question  propounded  by  you  :  I  judge 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  403 

it  not  lawful  for  you — being  a  ruling  elder  (Rom.  xii.,  7,  8, 
and  1  Tim.  v.,  17),  as  opposed  to  the  elders  that  teach  and 
labor  in  word  and  doctrine — to  which  the  sacraments  are  an- 
nexed— to  administer  them  [the  sacraments],  nor  convenient 
[expedient],  if  it  were  lawful.  AVhether  any  learned  man 
will  come  nnto  you  or  not,  I  know  not.  If  any  do  come, 
you  must  consiliicm  caper e  in  arena?' 

"  Be  you  most  heartily  saluted,  and  your  wife  with  you, 
both  from  me  and  mine.  Your  God  and  ours,  and  the  God 
of  all  his,  bring  us  together  if  it  be  his  will ;  and  keep  us,  in 
the  mean  wiiile  and  always,  to  his  glory,  and  make  us  service- 
able to  his  majesty  and  faithful  to  the  end.     Amen." 

These  being  the  latest  letters  now  extant  from  the  pen  of 
Robinson,  are,  on  that  account,  worthy  of  a  place  in  this 
narrative,  as  w^ell  as  on  account  of  the  light  which  they  give 
concerning  the  purpose  of  Lyford's  mission.  The  Advent- 
urers were  induced  to  send  him  by  the  influence  of  "  the  for- 
ward preachers"  over  "  the  professors."  Giflard,  the  Puritan 
"  minister  of  God's  holy  Word  in  Maiden,"  who  wrote  against 
Barrowe  and  Greenwood,  was  in  his  day  one  of"  the  forward 
preachers."  Bernard,  the  Puritan  vicar  of  Worksop,  whose 
"  invective  entituled  '  The  Separatists'  Schisme,'  "  called  forth 
from  Robinson  the  "Justification  of  Separation  from  the 
Church  of  England,"  was  a  "forward  preacher." ^  The 
"Pontificals"  w^ere  never  called  "forward  preachers"  either 
by  Puritans  or  by  Separatists,  nor  were  their  admiring  hear- 
ers known  by  any  such  name  as  "  professors  of  godliness." 

Those  "forward  preachers"  whose  influence  over  their 
friends  among  the  Adventurers  efiected  the  sending  of  Ly- 
ford  to  Plymouth  in  the  interest  of  Puritanism  against  Se])- 

^  By  this  phrase  Robinson  means :  "If  a  minister  come  to  you  from  En- 
gland, you  must  'take  counsel  in  the  field'" — decide  the  question  for  your- 
selves ;  or,  as  Cushman  said,  ' '  use  yoiu'  own  liberty  and  discretion  about 
choosing  him  into  office." 

=  Ante,  p.  120-122,  214. 


404  GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW   ENGLAND  CHURCHES.     [CH.  XVIII. 

aratisra,  were  sadly  mistaken  in  the  character  of  their  mis- 
sionary. Probably  they  could  see,  as  easily  as  Cushman  saw, 
that  in  his  quality  of  preacher  he  was  "  none  of  the  most 
eminent  and  rare;"  but  they  must  have  shared  Cushman's 
confidence  in  him  as  "an  honest,  j^lain  man."  His  gifts,  we 
must  assume,  were  considered  adequate  to  the  work  so  long- 
as  Robinson  could  be  kept  from  going  to  baffle  him.  On  his 
arrival  at  Plymouth,  he  made  extraordinary  professions  of 
"reverence  and  humility"  toward  the  chief  men  of  the 
church.  "He  wept  and  shed  many  tears,  blessing  God  that 
had  brouo-ht  him  to  see  their  faces,  and  admiriiio-  the  thins^s 
they  had  done  in  their  wants,  as  if  he  had  been  made  all  of 
love,  and  were  the  humblest  person  in  the  world."  In  their 
simplicity  they  received  him  with  hearty  welcome.  "  They 
gave  him  the  best  entertainment  they  could,  and  a  larger  al- 
lowance of  food  out  of  the  store" — for  himself  and  his  wife, 
and  "his  great  charge  of  children"  that  Cushman  had  men- 
tioned— a  larger  allowance  "  than  any  other  had."  Recog- 
nizing him  as  (in  Robinson's  phrase)  "  a  learned  man,"  they 
desired  the  benefit  of  his  intelligence  in  their  deliberations 
on  the  affairs  of  their  commonwealth.  "As  the  governor 
had  used  in  all  weighty  affairs  to  consult  with  their  elder, 
Mr.  Brewster,  together  with  his  assistants,"  elected  for  that 
purpose,^  "  so  now  he  called  Mr.  Lyford  also  to  consult  with 
them  in  their  weightiest  businesses."  They  were  becoming 
acquainted  with  him,  and  he  with  them. 

"After  some  short  time,  he  desired  to  join  himself,  as  a 
member,  to  the  church  here  " — the  church  which  those  for- 
ward preachers  in  London  held  to  be  schismatic,  because  it 
had  separated  itself  from  that  National  Church  which  they 
recognized  and  were  striving  to  reform.  He  "  was  accord- 
ingly received"  in  the  way  in  which  other  members  were 
received.  "  He  made  a  large  confession  of  his  faith ;"  and 
— what  was  deemed  hardly  less  important  than  any  profes- 

^  At  the  annual  election  in  162-t,  five  assistants  were  chosen. 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  405 

sion  of  dogmatic  belief,  however  sound — he  made  "  an  ac- 
knowledgment of  his  former  disorderly  walking  "  in  that  he 
had  submitted  to  an  ecclesiastical  government  which  was 
not  according  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  how  he  had  been  "  en- 
tangled in  many  corruptions  which  had  been  a  burden  to  his 
conscience."  With  many  expressions  which  in  that  time  and 
in  that  place  had  great  significance,  he  "  blessed  God  for  the 
opportunity  of  freedom  to  enjoy  the  ordinances  of  God  in 
purity  among  his  people."  While  thus  receiving  him  as  a 
member,  on  his  personal  profession  of  faith  and  his  engage- 
ment to  walk  with  them  in  the  order  of  the  Gospel,  the 
church  did  not  forget  the  advice — "About  choosing  him  into 
office,  use  your  own  liberty  and  discretion."  It  was  only 
reasonable  prudence  to  wait  for  a  larger  experience  of  his 
gifts,  and  a  better  acquaintance  with  his  Christian  graces, 
before  calling  him  to  the  office  of  pastor  or  of  teacher.  He 
preached  among  them,  not  in  "  the  ministry  of  office,"  but  in 
"  the  exercise  of  prophesying." 

At  the  same  time,  Mr.  John  Oldham,  who,  without  being 
a  very  zealous  Puritan,  had  been  known  as  opposing  the  Sep- 
aratist principles  professed  and  practiced  by  the  Pilgrims, 
became,  suddenly,  a  professed  friend  of  the  church  and  of 
the  course  of  affairs  in  the  commonwealth.  He  had  been  in 
the  colony  since  the  arrival  of  the  A7i7ie,  being  one  of  those 
who  came  "  on  their  particular,"  or  as  adventurers  on  their 
own  account.  With  others  of  the  particulars,  "drawing  to 
their  side  some  of  the  weaker  sort  of  the  company,"  he  had 
helped  to  form  a  party  of  malcontents  in  relations  of  mutual 
intelligence  with  the  anti-Separatist  party  among  the  Ad- 
venturers at  London.  "  But  now,"  since  the  arrival  of  the 
Charity  with  supplies,  and  with  passengers  of  whom  Lyford 
was  one,  "he  took  occasion  to  open  his  mind  to  some  of  the 
chief"  among  the  Pilgrims,  "  and  confessed  that  he  had  done 
them  wrong  both  by  word  and  deed,  and  by  writing  into 
England."  He  told  them  that  "he  now  saw  the  eminent 
hand  of  God  to  be  with  them  and  his  blessing  upon  them. 


406         GENESIS  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CHURCHES.     [CH.  XVIII. 

which  made  his  heart  smite  him."  In  his  professed  repent- 
ance, he  promised  that  their  adversaries  in  England  should 
never  more  use  him  as  an  instrument  against  them.  "He 
also  desired  that  former  things  might  be  forgotten,  and  that 
they  would  look  upon  him  as  one  that  desired  to  close  witli 
them  in  all  things."  It  does  not  appear  that  he  was  re- 
ceived, nor  that  he  desired  to  be  received,  as  a  member  of 
the  Pilgrim  church,  but  "they  showed  all  readiness  to  em- 
brace him  in  love;"  and  from  that  time,  in  consideration  of 
his  ability  as  a  man  of  business  and  his  position  among  those 
who  "  came  on  their  particulars,"  he  was  invited  to  take  part 
in  the  consultations  on  all  important  aftairs. 

Great  joy  was  there  in  the  hope  that  now  things  were  to 
"go  comfortably  and  smoothly."  But  ere  long  it  was  dis- 
covered that  Lyford  and  Oldham  were  at  work  as  the  lead- 
ers of  a  party  adverse  to  the  church  and  to  the  influ- 
ence that  was  moulding  the  commonwealth.  They  were 
good  friends  with  any  body,  "  however  vile  or  profane,"  that 
would  speak  against  the  church  and  its  rigid  principles  of 
Separation ;  and  they  were  "  feeding  themselves  and  others 
with  what  they  should  bring  to  pass  in  England  by  the 
faction  of  their  friends  there."  Perhaps  Lyford  was  dis- 
pleased to  find  that  his  reception  into  the  church  had  not 
given  him  any  authority  in  that  body,  and  that  he  was  not 
considered  competent  to  administer  sacraments  in  the  church 
of  Plymouth  by  virtue  of  his  ordination  in  the  National 
Church  of  England. 

While  these  things  were  in  progress,  the  Charity  com- 
pleted the  fishing  voyage  on  which  she  had  been  sent  by  her 
owners,  and  she  was  now  ready  for  her  return  to  England 
(July).  It  was  observed  that  Lyford  had  been  very  much 
occupied  with  writing,  and  that  the  letters  which  he  had 
prepared  in  expectation  of  this  opportunity  were  numer- 
ous. He  was  indiscreet  enough  to  give  out,  among  those 
who  were  of  his  party,  some  hints  of  the  great  eflects  which 
his  letters  would  produce  in  England  and  of  the  revolution 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  40*7 

which  would  ensue  in  the  colony.  It  seemed  to  the  govern- 
or, and  to  his  friends  with  whom  he  consulted,  that  the  safe- 
ty of  their  commonwealth  required  prompt  and  decisive 
measures.  "Knowing  how  things  stood  in  England,  and 
what  hurt  these  things  might  do,  he  took  a  shallop  and  went 
out  with  the  ship  a  league  or  two  to  sea,  and  called  for  all 
Lyford's  and  Oldham's  letters."  The  master  of  the  ship  was 
William  Pierce,^  a  steadfast  friend  of  the  colony,  who  well 
knew  what  was  going  on  both  in  England  and  here,  and  who 
"  afforded  him  all  the  assistance  he  could."  They  found  more 
than  twenty  of  Lyford's  letters — "  many  of  them  large,  and 
full  of  slanders  and  false  accusations  tending  not  only  to  the 
prejudice"  of  the  Pilgrim  commonwealth,  but  its  "ruin  and 
utter  subversion."  Of  those  letters  they  made  careful  cop- 
ies before  permitting  them  to  proceed.  Some  of  the  most 
important  they  retained  for  testimony,  sending  the  copies 
instead  of  the  originals.  In  a  letter  of  his  to  a  minister,  who 
seems  to  have  been  one  of  those  "  forward  preachers "  re- 
ferred to  by  Robinson,  they  found,  inclosed,  his  copies  of  two 
letters  which  he  had  found  lying  sealed  in  the  cabin  of  the 
Charity^  and  had  ventured  to  open  —  one  from  a  gentleman 
in  England  to  Elder  Brewster,  the  other  from  Winslow  to 
Pastor  Robinson  in  Holland.      Those  copies,  with  "  many 

^  William  Pierce  was  master  of  the  Paragon  (p.  383),  and  then  of  the  Anne 
(p.  384).  He  had  the  best  of  opportunities  for  becoming  acquainted  with  the 
Pilgrims,  and  with  the  adverse  faction  among  the  Adventurers  and  in  the  col- 
ony, Oldham  and  others  of  "  the  particulars  "  were  passengers  under  him 
in  their  coming  over.  He  had  been  a  passenger  with  Lyford  on  the  Charity, 
which  he  was  to  command  on  her  home  voyage.  Several  times  afterward  he 
visited  Plymouth. 

This  Captain  William  Pierce  is  to  be  distinguished  from  John  Pierce,  who 
was  one  of  the  Adventurers.  The  patent  of  1621  from  the  President  and 
Council  of  New  England  was  granted  to  "  John  Pierce  and  his  associates  " 
in  trust  for  the  benefit  of  the  colony.  He  afterward  obtained  from  the  same 
council  another  patent  which  would  have  made  him  a  lord  proprietor,  under 
whom  all  settlers  were  to  hold  their  lands,  but  which,  after  some  disasters, 
he  sold  to  the  company. 


408        GENESIS   OF  THE   NEAV  ENGLAND  CHUECHES.       [OH.  XVIII. 

scurrilous  and  floutiug  annotations,"  he  was  now  sending  to 
his  friend,  the  known  adversary  of  Brewster  and  of  Robin- 
son. It  was  toward  evening  when  the  ship  went  out  of 
Plymouth  harbor,  and  in  the  night  the  governor  returned. 

For  a  few  days  there  was  some  appearance  of  consterna- 
tion among  the  conspirators.  They  seemed  to  fear  that  their 
plans  had  been  discovered.  But  as  the  governor  said  noth- 
ing, their  anxiety  began  to  be  relieved,  and,  having  con- 
cluded that  he  followed  the  ship  that  evening  only  to  dis- 
patch his  own  letters,  they  took  courage.  After  a  while  they 
"  were  as  brisk  as  ever,"  not  aware  that  the  government 
was  watching  them,  and  was  waiting  "  to  let  things  ripen." 
That  waiting  was  not  without  some  foresight  of  what  w^ould 
be  attempted ;  for  among  the  letters  which  had  been  exam- 
ined was  one  in  which  a  partner  in  the  conspiracy  "  had 
written  that  Mr.  Oldham  and  Mr.  Lyford  intended  a  ref- 
ormation in  church  and  commonwealth,  and  that,  as  soon  as 
the  ship  was  gone,  they  intended  to  join  together  and  have 
the  sacraments."  "Reformation  in  the  commonwealth" 
could  mean  nothing  else  than  a  violent  subversion  of  the 
government  which  had  grown  out  of  the  compact  in  the 
cabin  of  the  Mayfiower.  "Reformation  in  church,"  intro- 
ducing the  ministration  of  sacraments  by  Lyford,  could 
mean  nothing  less  than  a  suppression  of  the  detested  Sep- 
aration, that  the  ideas  and  practices  of  ecclesiastical  Nation- 
alism might  come  in.  That  Church  of  England  for  which 
reforming  Puritans  and  Pontifical  conservatives  were  equally 
vehement  against  the  schismatic  Brownists,  Barrowists,  Do- 
natists,  or  by  w^hatever  other  reproachful  names  they  might 
be  called,  was  to  be  set  up  in  New  England  by  the  religious 
zeal  of  John  Oldham  and  the  purity  of  John  Lyford. 

With  no  great  lapse  of  time  things  ripened.  The  conspir- 
ators, "  thinking  they  were  now  strong  enough,  began  to 
pick  quarrels  at  every  thing.  It  had  not  yet  become  safe, 
in  Plymouth,  to  dispense  with  the  nightly  watch,  and  all 
able-bodied  men  were  required  to  take  their  turns,  under  the 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF   NATIONALISM.  409 

command  of  Captain  Standish,  in  guarding  the  repose  of  the 
village.  Oldham,  being  called  to  that  service  in  his  turn, 
took  the  opportunity  to  raise  a  quarrel  with  the  captain, 
calling  him  "  rascal "  and  "  beggarly  rascal,"  and  drawing 
his  knife  at  him,  with  no  other  provocation  than  that  of  hav- 
ing been  required  to  do  his  duty.  So  great  and  so  noisy 
was  the  tumult  that  the  governor,  hearing  it,  "  sent  to  quiet 
it."  Oldham  was  not  to  be  quieted  by  a  word.  "  He  ramp- 
ed more  like  a  furious  beast  than  a  man,  called  them  all 
'traitors'  and  'rebels,'  "  and  used  other  opprobrious  language 
too  foul  to  be  recorded;  "but,  after  he  was  clapt  up  a  while, 
he  came  to  himself,  and,  with  some  slight  punishment,  was 
let  go  upon  his  behavior,  for  further  censure."  In  other 
words,  Oldham's  conduct  in  relation  to  the  order  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  colony  was  to  be  further  investigated  and  ju- 
dicially passed  upon. 

The  crisis  came.  "  Lyford  and  his  accomplices,  w^ithout 
even  speaking  one  word  to  governor,  church,  or  elder,  with- 
drew themselves,  and  set  up  a  public  meeting  apart,  on  the 
Lord's  day,  with  sundry  such  insolent  carriages,  too  long 
here  to  relate."  They  were  "  beginning  now  publicly  to  act 
what  privately  they  had  been  long  plotting."  Let  us  not 
suppose  that  they  were  acting  in  the  name  or  in  the  interest 
of  religious  liberty.  Far  from  them  was  the  thought  of  as- 
serting the  now  universally  acknowledged  right  of  every 
man  to  worship  God  under  such  forms  and  in  such  associa- 
tions as  seem  best  to  his  conscience.  That  setting  up  of  a 
public  meeting  on  the  Lord's  day  was  the  intrusion,  not  of 
liberty,  but  of  the  national-church  theory;  and  it  signified 
that  the  Pilgrims,  after  their  twelve  years  of  exile  in  Hol- 
land, and  with  three  thousand  miles  of  ocean  between  tliem 
and  England,  w^ere  still  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  eccle- 
siastical Nationalism  from  which  they  fled  so  long  ago. 

Evidently  the  time  had  come  for  decisive  measures.  "  The 
governor  called  a  court,  and  summoned  the  whole  company 
to  appear."     It  was  a  General  Court — a  town-meeting.     Ly- 


410       GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW   ENGLAND   CHURCHES.       [CH.  XVIII. 

ford  and  Oldham  were  charged  with  having  conspired  to 
subvert  the  commonwealth.  "  But  they  were  stiff,  and  stood 
resolutely  upon  the  denial  of  most  things,  and  required 
proof"  Reserving  to  a  later  stage  the  most  conclusive  evi- 
dence in  the  case,  the  prosecution  first  produced  the  letters 
from  England  concerning  the  plans  there  formed  against  the 
colony,  and  argued  from  "the  doings  and  practices  here" 
of  those  two  men  that  they  were  agents  or  partners  of  the 
faction  there.  How  injurious  and  malicious  their  plot  was 
against  the  peace  of  the  colony,  "  both  in  respect  of  its  civil 
and  church  state,"  they  could  not  but  know ;  "  for  they  and 
all  the  world  knew"  that  the  people  of  Plymouth — the  Pil- 
grims— "  came  hither  to  enjoy  the  liberty  of  their  conscience 
and  the  free  use  of  God's  ordinances  " — a  liberty  of  which 
the  conspirators  were  seeking  to  deprive  them.  For  that 
end  the  men  of  Plymouth  "  had  ventured  their  lives  and 
passed  through  much  hardship  hitherto."  For  that  end, 
"  they  and  their  friends  had  borne  the  charge  of  these  begin- 
nings, which  was  not  small."  Lyford  was  told  that  he  had 
been  sent  over,  with  "  his  great  family,"  at  the  expense  of 
the  colony,  and  was  maintained  out  of  their  means;  that  he 
had,  by  his  own  choice  and  j^rofession,  become  a  covenanted 
member  of  their  church,  and  was  in  all  respects  counted 
among  them ;  and  that  "  for  him  to  plot  against  them  and 
seek  their  ruin  was  most  unjust  and  perfidious."  Oldham 
and  the  others  who  like  him  had  "  come  over  at  their  own 
charge,  and  were  on  their  particular,"  were  reminded  that 
they  had  been  received  in  courtesy  by  the  plantation  when 
"  they  came  to  seek  shelter  and  protection,  .  .  .  not  being 
able  to  stand  alone ;"  and  they  were  likened  to  "  the  hedge- 
hog in  the  fable,  whom  the  cony  in  a  stormy  day  received 
into  her  burrow."  As  the  hedgehog  "  would  not  be  content 
to  take  part,  but  in  the  end,  with  her  sharp  pricks,  forced  the 
poor  cony  to  forsake  her  own  burrow,  so  these  men,  with 
the  like  injustice,  endeavored  to  do  the  same  to  those  that 
entertained  tliem." 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OP    NATIONALISM.  411 

Xo  mention  having  been  made  of  intercepted  letters,  Ly- 
ford  ventured  to  deny  that  he  had  any  thing  to  do  with 
those  in  England  who  w^ere  adversaries  of  the  colony,  and 
affected  much  surprise  at  being  charged  with  that  and  other 
things.  "Then  his  letters  were  produced  and  some  of  them 
read,  at  which  he  was  struck  mute."  Oldham's  letters  were 
few ;  indeed,  "  he  was  so  bad  a  scribe  "  that  what  of  his  writ- 
ing had  been  intercepted  was  hardly  legible.  But  he  was  in 
a  rage  at  the  exposure,  and  "in  very  high  language"  threat- 
ened vengeance.  Appealing  to  those  whom  he  supposed  to 
be  of  his  party  and  to  be  ready  for  mutiny,  he  cried,  "  Now 
show  your  courage  !  You  have  often  complained  to  me ; 
now  is  the  time,  if  you  will  do  any  thing ;  I  will  stand  by 
you  !"  But  there  was  no  response ;  "  not  a  man  opened  his 
mouth."  In  that  silence,  "  the  governor  turned  his  speech 
to  Mr.  Lyford,  and  asked  him  if  he  thought  they  had  done 
evil  to  open  his  letters ;  but  he  would  not  say  a  word,  well 
knowing  what  they  might  reply."  But  not  deeming  him- 
self sufficiently  vindicated  by  Lyford's  mute  confession,  the 
governor  proceeded  to  tell  the  people  why  he  had  taken  that 
extreme  measure  of  searching  the  letters  which  the  conspir- 
ators were  sending  to  England.  "  He  did  it  as  a  magistrate, 
and  was  bound  to  it  by  his  place,  to  prevent  the  mischief 
and  ruin  that  this  conspiracy  of  theirs  would  bring  on  this 
poor  colony."  Then  he  informed  them  about  the  letters 
which  Lyford  stole  from  Winslow,  and  of  which  he  was  send- 
ing copies,  "  with  disgraceful  annotations,"  to  some  of  those 
in  England  who  were  adversaries  of  the  Pilgrim  common- 
wealth. The  exhibition  of  those  copies,  and  of  other  letters 
in  Lyford's  own  handwriting,  was  conclusive;  and  those 
whom  he  might  have  expected  to  befriend  him  in  the  assem- 
bly were  silent  and  ashamed. 

Some  of  the  allegations  against  the  Pilgrim  colony,  in  the 
intercepted  letters,  are  worth  repeating  for  the  sake  of  show- 
ing how  they  were  answered,  then  and  there,  in  a  full  assem- 
bly that  knew  what  the  facts  were.     Lyford  had  alleged 


412        GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW   ENGLAND   CHUKCHES.       [CH.  XVIII. 

that  "tlie  church  would  have  none  to  live  here  but  them- 
selves;" that  "neither  were  any  willing  so  to  do  if  they  had 
company  to  live  elsewhere,"  and  that  "if  there  come  over 
any  honest  men  that  are  not  of  the  Separation,  they  " — the 
Pilgrim  planters  —  "will  quickly  distaste  them."  All  this, 
with  more  of  the  same  sort,  was  peremptorily  contradicted. 
"  They  were  w^illing  and  desirous  that  any  honest  men  may 
live  w^ith  them,  that  will  carry  themselves  peaceably  and 
seek  the  common  good,  or  at  least  do  them  no  hurt."  They 
affirmed  "there  are  many" — not  members  of  the  church — 
"that  will  not  live  elsewhere  so  long  as  they  may  live  with 
us."  As  for  the  assertion  that  "  honest  men,  not  of  the  Sep- 
aration," were  "distasted"  and  unwelcome,  they  pronounced 
it  "a  false  calumniation,"  declaring  that  "they  had  many 
[such]  among  them,  whom  they  liked  well  of,  and  were  glad 
of  their  company,"  and  that  "any  such  like  that  should 
come  "  would  be  welcome.  Such  evidence  is  there  that  they 
neither  intended  nor  expected  to  establish  a  religious  or  ec- 
clesiastical uniformity.  They  would  gladly  receive  into  their 
commonwealth  "all  honest  men  "  of  peaceable  behavior,  who 
would  "  seek  the  common  good,  or  at  least  do  them  no  hurt." 
All  that  they  demanded  was  that  "the  hedgehog"  of  Na- 
tionalism should  not  "  with  her  sharp  pricks  force  the  poor 
cony  to  forsake  her  own  burrow." 

What  Lyford  was  proposing  that  his  friends  should  do  in 
order  to  his  intended  "reformation  in  church  and  common- 
wealth" was  full  of  significance  as  to  the  nature  and  extent 
of  the  changes  that  were  to  be  effected.  First  of  all,  "  the 
Leyden  company  (Mr.  Kobinson  and  the  rest)  must  still  be 
kept  back,  or  else  all  will  be  spoiled ;  and,  lest  any  of  them 
should  be  taken  in  privately  somewhere  on  the  coast  of  En- 
gland, they  must  change  the  master  of  the  ship  (Mr.  William 
Pierce),  and  put  another  also  in  W^inslow's  stead  for  mer- 
chant." Next  the  anti-Separatist  party  must  be  strengthen- 
ed by  emigration  and  otherwise.  Such  a  number  must  be 
provided  and  sent  as  would  be  enough  to  take  possession  of 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  413 

the  colony,  and  "  oversway  them  here  ;"  the  "  particulars  " 
must  "have  voices  in  all  courts  and  elections,  and  be  free  to 
bear  any  office;"  and  certain  other  arrangements,  more  cun- 
ning than  honest,  were  suggested  which  "  would  be  a  means 
to  strengthen  this  side  the  more."  Then  a  military  man, 
who  had  been  spokdn  of,  should  be  sent  over,  and  he  would 
surely  be  chosen  captain;  "for  this  Captain  Standish" 
(quoth  Lyford)  "  looks  like  a  silly  boy,  and  is  in  utter  con- 
tempt." If  the  attempt  to  capture  Plymouth  by  that  meth- 
od should  not  succeed,  a  distinct  settlement  should  be  be- 
gun within  three  or  four  miles'  distance.  In  other  words, 
if  the  place  could  not  be  taken  by  stratagem,  it  must  be 
besieged.  Finally,  by  way  of  giving  more  urgency  to  all 
these  counsels,  the  suggestion  was  made  that  unless  the 
anti-Separatist  party  in  the  colony  should  be  i-einforced, 
there  would  be  no  great  hope  of  its  holding  out  much 
longer. 

Lyford,  "  after  the  reading  of  his  letters  before  the  whole 
company,"  was  called  upon  for  such  defense  or  explanation 
as  he  might  offer.  He  put  the  blame  of  what  he  had  done 
upon  "  Billington  and  some  others,"  who,  he  said,  had  made 
complaints  to  him,  and  had  given  him  the  information  on 
which  he  acted.  Was  that  —  said  some  one,  in  behalf  of 
the  court — a  sufficient  ground  for  you  thus  to  accuse  and 
traduce  us  by  your  letters,  and  never  say  a  word  to  us — con- 
sidering the  many  bonds  between  you  and  us?  Those  whom 
he  had  thus  accused  and  traduced  took  up  the  several  par- 
ticulars of  accusation,  and  told  him.  We  desire  you,  or  any 
of  your  friends  and  confederates,  not  to  spare  us  in  any  thing. 
If  you  or  they  have  any  proof  of  any  corrupt  or  evil  doing 
of  ours,  the  evidence  must  needs  be  here  present;  for  here 
are  the  whole  company  and  sundry  strangers.  All  the  an- 
swer they  could  get  was  that  he  had  been  abused,  as  he  now 
saw,  by  the  men  who  had  given  him  information.  Billington 
and  any  whom  he  named  as  having  informed  him,  "  protest- 
ed that  he  wronged  them ;"  and  while  they  acknowledged 

E  E 


414        GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW  ENGLAND   CHUECHES.       [CH.  XVIIl. 

that  "they  were  sometimes  drawn  to  his  meetings,"  they  in- 
sisted that  they  had  not  consented  to  his  revohitionary  pro- 
posals. 

He  was  then  "  dealt  with  "  in  respect  to  "  his  dissembling 
with  them  about  the  church."  He  was  reminded  "  what  a 
large  confession  he  made  at  his  admittance ;"  how  he  pro- 
fessed "  that  he  held  not  himself  a  minister  till  he  had  a  new 
calling ;"  and  how  he  was  now,  after  so  short  a  time,  work- 
ing in  opposition  to  the  church,  setting  up  a  hostile  congre- 
gation, and  proposing  to  administer  sacraments  by  virtue 
of  that  episcopal  ordination  which  he  had  so  recently  re- 
nounced, and  all  "  without  ever  speaking  a  word  to  them 
either  as  magistrates  or  as  brethren." 

Thus  baffled  in  every  attempt  at  defense,  deserted  by  those 
whom  he  had  regarded  as  confederates,  only  his  fellow-cul- 
prit Oldham  on  his  side,  shut  up  to  the  necessity  of  acknowl- 
edging his  baseness,  the  unhappy  man  "  burst  out  into  tears" 
and  made  ample  confession.  "He  feared  he  was  a  repro- 
bate ;  his  sins  were  so  great  that  he  doubted  God  would  not 
pardon  them ;  he  was  unsavory  salt,  fit  only  to  be  trodden 
under  foot;  he  had  so  wronged  them  that  he  could  never 
make  amends ;  all  he  had  written  against  them  was  false  both 
for  matter  and  manner."  The  show  of  humility  and  sorrow 
was  "  with  as  much  fullness  as  words  and  tears  could  express." 

The  trial  having  resulted  in  so  complete  a  conviction,  there 
remained  the  question,  What  shall  the  sentence  be  ?  "  The 
court  censured  them  to  be  expelled  the  place,  Oldham  pres- 
ently— though  his  wife  and  family  had  liberty  to  stay  all 
winter,  or  longer,  till  he  could  make  provision  to  remove 
them  comfortably."  On  Lyford,  notwithstanding  the  ex- 
posure of  his  hypocrisy,  the  sentence  of  expulsion  was  less 
peremptory.  He  was  permitted  to  remain  six  months ;  and 
that  delay  "  was  indeed  with  some  eye  to  his  release,  if  he 
carried  himself  well  in  the  mean  time,  and  his  repentance 
proved  sound."  He  acknowledged  that  the  sentence  was  less 
than  he  deserved,  and  "  afterward  he  confessed  his  sin  pub- 


A.D.  1624.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  415 

licly  in  the  churcli,  with  tears,  more  largely  than  before."  ^ 
Such  was  the  charitableness  of  the  Pilgrims  toward  offend- 
ers, and  their  readiness  to  absolve  from  censure  when  they 
found  a  plausible  profession  of  repentance,  that  they,  in  con- 
sideration of  his  tears  and  his  self-humiliation,  "began  again 
to  conceive  good  thoughts  of  him,"  and  soon  permitted  him 
again  to  exercise  his  gift  of  preaching  in  their  assembly. 
"Some  tender-hearted  men  among  them"  (one  of  the  tender- 
hearted being  Deacon  Samuel  Fuller,  their  beloved  j^hysician) 
"  w^ere  so  taken  with  his  signs  of  sorrow  and  repentance,  that 
they  professed  they  would  fall  upon  their  knees"  if  so  they 
might  obtain  the  remission  of  his  sentence. 

Their  charitable  trust  in  the  sincerity  of  his  professed  re- 
pentance was  disappointed.  Not  half  of  the  six  months  al- 
lowed to  him  had  passed,  when  another  letter  from  him  to  the 
Adventurers  fell  into  the  governor's  hands  (Aug.  22  =  Sept. 
1),  exposing  the  extreme  duplicity  of  the  man.  "I  suppose," 
said  he,  "  my  letters,  or  at  least  the  copies  of  them,  are  come 
to  your  hands,  for  so  they  here  report.  If  it  be  so,  I  pray 
you  take  notice  of  this,  that  I  have  written  nothing  but  what 
is  certainly  true."  Knowing  the  Puritan  zeal  and  anti-Sepa- 
ratist prejudices  of  the  men  to  whom  he  was  writing,  he  ap- 
pealed to  them  in  behalf  of  "  divers  poor  souls  here,  destitute 

'  Bradford  adds  :  "I  shall  here  put  it  down,  as  I  find  it  recorded  by  some 
who  took  it  from  his  own  words  as  himself  uttered  them,  acknowledging 
'  That  he  had  done  very  evil  and  slanderously  abused  them ;  and  thinking 
most  of  the  people  would  take  part  with  him,  he  thought  to  carry  all  by  vio- 
lence and  strong  hand  against  them.  And  that  God  might  justly  lay  inno- 
cent blood  to  his  charge,  for  he  knew  not  what  hurt  might  have  come  of  these 
his  writings ;  and  [he]  blessed  God  they  were  stayed.  And  that  he  spared 
not  to  take  knowledge  from  any  of  any  evil  that  was  spoken,  but  shut  his 
eyes  and  ears  against  all  the  good.  And  if  God  should  make  him  a  vaga- 
bond in  the  earth,  as  was  Cain,  it  was  but  just,  for  he  had  sinned  in  envy  and 
malice  against  his  brethren  as  he  did.  And  he  confessed  three  things  to  be 
the  ground  and  causes  of  these  his  doings  :  pride,  vainglory,  and  self-love. " 
Amplifying  these  heads  with  many  other  sad  expressions  in  the  particulars 
of  them." 


416         GENESIS  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CHURCHES.     [CH.  XVIII. 

of  the  means  of  salvation,"  and  added  fresh  calumnies  against 
the  church.  Adopting  a  Puritan  misrepresentation  of  Sepa- 
ratist principles,  he  alleged  that  the  church,  though  only  a 
minority  in  the  colony,  "  appropriated  the  ministry  to  them- 
selves, holding  this  principle  that  the  Lord  hath  not  appoint- 
ed any  ordinary  ministry  for  the  conversion  of  those  that 
are  without."  "  Some  of  the  poor  souls,"  he  said,  "  have 
with  tears  complained  of  this  to  me,  and  I  was  taxed  for 
preaching  to  all  in  general."  At  the  same  time -he  had  his 
fling  at  the  lay  preaching  of  Elder  Brewster,  and  the  prophe- 
syings  wherewith  the  brethren  were  wont  to  edify  one  an- 
other. "In  truth,  they  have  no  ministry  here,  since  they 
came,  but  such  as  may  be  performed  by  any  of  you,  .  .  . 
whatsoever  great  pretenses  they  make.  Herein  they  equivo- 
cate, as  in  many  other  things  they  do." 

Full  of  these  and  other  calumnies,  the  letter  went  forward 
to  its  destination;  but  with  it  Bradford  sent  an  ample  refu- 
tation. On  the  last  point,  especially,  the  reply  was  pungent. 
"  He  saith  we  have  had  no  ministry  since  we  came.  .  .  .  We 
answer,  The  more  is  our  wrong,  that  our  pastor  is  kept  from 
us  by  these  men's  means,  who  then  reproach  us  for  it  when 
they  have  done.  Yet  have  we  not  been  wholly  destitute  of 
the  means  of  salvation,  as  this  man  would  make  the  world 
believe;  for  our  reverend  elder  hath  labored  diligently  in 
dispensing  the  Word  of  God  to  us  before  he  [Lyford]  came, 
and  since  hath  taken  equal  pains  with  him  in  preaching  the 
same ;  and  (be  it  spoken  without  ostentation)  he  is  not  infe- 
rior to  Mr.  Lyford  and  some  of  his  betters,  either  in  gifts  or 
learning — though  he  would  never  be  persuaded  to  take  high- 
er office  upon  him.  .  .  .  For  '  equivocating,'  he  may  take  it 
to  himself  What  the  church  holds  it  has  manifested  to  the 
world  in  all  plainness,  both  in  open  confession  and  doctrine 
and  in  writing." 

Notwithstanding  this  new  provocation,  the  doubly  con- 
victed hypocrite  was  permitted  to  remain  till  the  end  of  his 
six  months.     But  meanwhile  the  church  was  strciiothened. 


A.D.  1625.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    SEPARATISM,  417 

Some  who  had  stood  aloof  were  brought  to  a  decision  by  the 
exposure  of  Lyford's  malignity,  and  asked  for  admission  to 
the  covenanted  brotherhood,  "  professing  that  it  was  not  out 
of  the  dislike  of  any  thing  that  they  had  stood  off  so  long, 
but  only  out  of  a  desire  to  fit  themselves  better  for  such  a 
state."  They  now  chose  to  unite  themselves  with  the  church, 
because  "  they  saw  the  Lord  called  for  their  help." 

The  six-months'  postponement  of  Lyford's  removal  from 
the  colony — a  postponement  which  had  been  granted  partly 
out  of  resfard  to  his  wife  and  children,  that  their  flioht  mi2:ht 
not  be  in  the  winter  —  was  ending,  when  Oldham,  with- 
out permission  obtained  or  asked,  returned  to  Plymouth 
(April,  1625),  in  company  w^ith  some  strangers.  His  behav- 
ior was  so  insolent  and  outrageous  that  his  companions  were 
ashamed  of  him,  and  rebuked  him.  But  rebuke,  even  from 
them,  inflamed  his  rage,  and  the  governor  found  it  necessary 
to  "commit  him  till  he  should  be  tamer."  For  his  punish- 
ment, afterward,  "a  guard  of  musketeers  was  drawn  up, 
through  which  he  was  to  pass,  receiving  from  every  one  a 
parting  thump  with  a  musket  on  his  rear  as  he  went  by." 
He  was  then  "  conveyed  to  the  water-side,  where  a  boat  was 
ready  to  carry  him  away."  So  they  dismissed  him  with  a 
word  of  exhortation — "Go,  and  mend  your  manners." 

It  was  a  singular  coincidence  that  Winslow  and  William 
Pierce  arrived,  just  then,  on  their  return  from  England,  and 
landed  at  Plymouth  while  the  whole  village  was  occupied 
with  the  ceremonies  of  Oldham's  dismissal.  They  brought 
with  them  new  and  abundant  proof  both  of  Oldham's  machi- 
nations against  the  colony  and  of  Lyford's  extreme  deprav- 
ity. In  England  they  had  encountered  the  accusations  which 
went  over  in  Lyford's  letters,  and  which  were  urged  by  the 
anti-Separatists  among  the  Adventurers.  Much  bickering 
had  they  there  with  the  men  of  that  party.  Those  whose  pity 
for  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  colony  had  moved  them  to  send 
Lyford  on  his  unsuccessful  mission  were  clamorous.  They 
could  not  endure  to  see  "a  minister,  a  man  so  godly,"  ac- 


418         GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW   ENGLAND   CHURCHES.      [CH.  XVIII. 

cused  of  falsehood.  They  deemed  it  a  great  scandal,  and 
threatened  a  prosecution  in  the  courts.  A  full  meeting  of 
the  Adventurers  was  called  to  hear  the  whole  case,  and  to 
decide  all  questions  concerning  it;  and  for  that  meeting  two 
moderators  were  agreed  upon  beforehand.  The  moderators 
were  "Mr.  White,  a  counselor  at  law,"  chosen  by  Lyford's 
party,  and  "  the  Reverend  Mr,  Hooker"  (Thomas  Hooker,  aft- 
erward of  New  England),  chosen  by  the  other  party.  At 
the  appointed  time,  "many  friends  on  both  sides  were  brought 
in,  so  as  there  was  a  great  assembly."  The  result  was  a 
complete  discomfiture  of  the  anti-Separatist  party  by  an  ex- 
posure of  shameful  facts  in  the  life  of  the  man  with  whom 
their  cause  had  been  unhappily  identified.  For  that  result, 
and  the  facts  which  produced  it,  some  at  Plymouth  were  al- 
ready prepared  by  certain  confidential  disclosures  which  Ly- 
ford's wife,  in  "her  grief  and  sorrow  of  mind,"  had  made  to 
them. 

When  Lyford,  after  his  first  exposure  at  Plymouth,  and 
the  show  of  penitence  w^hich  he  then  made,  had  been  again 
detected  in  his  work  of  calumnious  accusation,  his  wife,  terri- 
fied by  his  wickedness,  and  apprehensive  that  God's  provi- 
dence in  dealing  with  such  wickedness  might  bring  some 
dire  calamity  on  her  and  her  children,'  told  the  story  of  her 
wrongs  and  of  her  husband's  extreme  baseness,  "  to  one  of  the 
deacons  and  some  other  of  her  friends."  She  could  no  longer 
endure,  without  some  Christian  sympathy,  the  agony  of 
knowing  how  vile  lie  had  been  in  his  relations  with  other 
women,  both  before  her  marriage  to  him  and  through  all  her 
wedded  life.  The  friends  in  whom  she  confided  kept  her 
secret.  But  while  AVinslow  and  Pierce,  in  London,  were 
managing  the  cause  of  the  colony  against  Lyford's  employ- 
ers, it  came  to  pass  that  some  of  the  other  party  in  the  Com- 
pany of  Adventurers  had   received  information   concerning 

*  The  text  2  Sam.  xii.,  11,  seemed  to  her  like  a  divine  threatening  against 
her  person,  which  might  be  executed,  if,  in  their  removal  from  Plymoiitli, 
they  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  Indians. 


A.D.  1625.]  ATTEMPTS    OF    NATIONALISM.  419 

"his  evil  carriage  in  Ireland,"  and  had  put  Winslow  into 
communication  with  "  two  godly  and  grave  witnesses  who 
would  testify  the  same,  if  called  thereunto,  upon  their  oath." 
The  story  in  detail  is  too  shameful  to  be  narrated  here.  It 
is  enough  to  repeat  what  Bradford  tells  of  the  procedure  in 
that  assembly  of  the  Adventurers,  "  with  many  friends  on 
both  sides,"  under  the  joint  moderatorship  of  Mr.  Counselor 
White  and  Rev.  Mr.  Hooker.  "  In  handling  the  former  mat- 
ters about  the  letters,  Mr.  Winslow,  upon  provocation,  in 
some  heat  of  reply  to  some  of  Lyford's  defenders,  let  fall 
these  words,  'That  he  liad  dealt  knavishly.'"  Thereupon 
one  of  the  adverse  party  bade  the  hearers  take  notice  that 
Winslow  "had  called  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  a  knave,"  and 
to  be  ready  to  testify  that  fact  in  a  court  of  law.  In  the  ex- 
citement which  ensued,  the  reputation  which  that  "  minister 
of  the  Gospel"  had  in  Ireland  was  referred  to;  "and  the 
witnesses  were  produced,  whose  persons  were  so  grave,  the 
evidence  so  plain,  and  the  fact  so  foul  (yet  delivered  in  such 
modest  and  chaste  terms,  and  with  such  circumstances),  as 
struck  all  his  friends  mute,  and  made  them  all  ashamed." 
In  conclusion,  "  the  moderators  with  great  gravity  declared 
that  the  former  matters  gave"  the  Plymouth  people  "cause 
enough  to  refuse  him,  and  to  deal  with  him  as  they  had 
done;  but  that  these  matters  made  him  unmeet  forever  to 
bear  ministry  any  more,  what  repentance  soever  he  should 
pretend."  With  that  expression  of  their  opinion,  they  ad- 
vised "  his  friends  to  rest  quiet.  Thus  was  this  matter  end- 
ed." The  attempt  of  Puritanism  in  the  Company  to  over- 
come Separatism  in  the  colony  by  sending  out  a  minister 
who  should  supplant  Robinson  in  the  aifection  and  confi- 
dence of  the  Pilgrims,  had  come  to  naught. 

Such  were  the  tidings  which  Winslow  and  Pierce  brought 
to  Plymouth  at  the  moment  when  the  colony  was  expellinoj 
Oldham  the  second  time.  Lyford  and  his  family  settled 
down,  for  a  time,  with  Oldham  and  a  few  others,  at  Nan- 
tasket,  the   southern   cape  of  Boston   harbor.      From  that 


420        GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW   ENGLAND  CHUIiCHES.       [CH.  XVIII. 

place  he  and  they  soon  removed  to  Cape  Ann,  as  pioneers  of 
a  colony  to  be  established  on  other  than  Separatist  principles. 
Thence — probably  not  long  after  his  character  had  begun  to 
be  more  thoroughly  understood  in  the  new  settlement  and 
among  its  patrons — he  removed  to  a  greater  distance.  Brad- 
ford says :  "  Whether  for  hope  of  greater  profit,  or  what 
ends  else,  I  know  not,  he  left  his  friends  that  followed  him, 
and  went  to  Virginia,  where  he  shortly  after  died,  and  so  I 
leave  him  to  the  Lord." 

Oldham,  about  a  year  and  a  half  from  the  date  of  that  in- 
solent behavior  of  his  which  was  so  jiromptly  and  fitly  pun- 
ished by  the  Plymouth  government,  had  embarked  with  many 
other  passengers  for  a  voyage  to  Virginia.  He  found  him- 
self, with  them,  in  great  peril  of  shipwreck  "  on  the  shoals  of 
Cape  Cod."  Despairing  of  life,  some  of  them,  and  he  among 
them,  betook  themselves  to  prayer,  and  to  the  mutual  con- 
fession of  "such  sins  as  did  most  burden  them."  On  that 
occasion,  as  was  reported  by  "  some  of  good  credit  who  were 
themselves  partners  in  the  same  dangers,"  he  made  "  a  free 
and  large  confession  of  the  wrongs  and  hurt  he  had  done  to 
the  people  and  church"  in  Plymouth.  Delivered  from  that 
danger,  "he  afterward  carried  himself  fairly  toward  them, 
and  acknowledged  the  hand  of  God  to  be  with  them,  and 
seemed  to  have  an  honorable  respect  of  them."  They,  on 
their  part,  retained  no  grudge  against  him.  He  "so  far 
made  his  peace  with  them  that  he  had  liberty  to  go  and 
come,"  and  to  "converse"  or  transact  business  "with  them 
at  his  pleasure."^ 

Thus  the  feeble  church  of  Christ  at  Plymouth  held  its 
ground,  and  no  weapon  that  was  formed  against  it  prospered. 


^  Oldham  lived  till  lOoG,  and  was  then  murdered  bj  Indians,  on  his  own 
vessel,  near  Block  Island.  His  death  was  among  the  causes  of  the  Pequot 
War. 


A.D.1625.]       THE   PILGRIMS   ABANDONED  BY  PURITANS.  421 


CHAPTER  XIX.       . 

THE    PILGRIM    COLONY  ABANDONED    BY  THE    PURITAN    ADVENT- 
URERS.  PROSPERITY    AT    PLYMOUTH. — DEATH    OF 

ROBINSON, THE    LEYDEN    REMNANT. 

Had  the  colony  yielded  speedy  and  large  profits  to  the 
capital  invested  in  it,  the  anti-Separatist  Adventurers  might, 
perhaps,  have  forgotten  their  scruples  about  the  ecclesiastical 
unsoundness  of  the  Pilgrims.  A  brilliant  prosjDect  of  com- 
mercial success  might  have  tempted  them  to  tamper  with 
their  convictions.  But,  as  things  came  to  pass,  no  such 
temptation  befell  them.  From  the  purchase  of  the  Speedwell 
onward,  there  had  been  a  series  of  disasters.  Larger  invest- 
ments were  continually  demanded,  but  the  returns  in  furs 
and  fish  had  fallen  short  of  expectations  which  seemed  rea- 
sonable at  the  beginning.  A  superstitious  abhorrence  of 
Brownism  might  lead  some  to  believe  that  the  providence 
of  God  was  against  an  enterprise  so  tainted  with  the  sin  of 
schism.  Worldly  wisdom  might  suggest  that  a  colony  of 
Separatists,  who  rejected  not  only  "  the  ceremonies  and  the 
vestments"  and  the  prelatical  government,  but  the  National 
Church  itself,  could  not  be  made  attractive  to  any  large  num- 
ber of  respectable  Englishmen,  and  therefore  could  not  flour- 
ish. Such  were  the  mingled  motives  which  induced  the 
sending  of  Lyford  to  Plymoutl).  The  ignominious  failure 
of  his  mission  was  a  discouragement  to  the  zealous  Puritans 
in  the  Company  of  Adventurers;  but  for  all  that  their  antip- 
athy to  Brownism  was  not  overcome. 

After  the  meeting  in  which  Lyford's  character  was  so  fa- 
tally exposed,  the  majority  of  the  Adventurers  witlidrew 
their  patronage  from  the  colony  and  their  co-operation  from 
the  enterprise.  In  eff*ect  the  Company,  though  not  yet  form- 
ally dissolved,  was  broken  to  pieces.     The  minority,  who  liad 


422         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

been,  through  all  discouragements,  steadfast  friends  of  the 
Pilgrim  church  and  colony,  did  not  forsake  them  in  this 
emergency.  Unwilling  to  make  any  additional  investment 
in  a  concern  which  two  thirds  of  their  partners  had  deserted, 
they  sent,  nevertheless,  a  small  supply  of  goods,  which,  in- 
stead of  going  into  the  common  stock,  were  to  be  sold  on 
their  private  account.  The  malcontent  Adventurers,  on  the 
other  hand,  sent  out  a  vessel  which  was  to  co-operate  with 
Oldham  and  Lyford  and  their  followers  in  the  fishery  at 
Cape  Ann.  Letters  were  sent  in  which  the  views  and  pur- 
poses of  each  of  those  parties  were  explained. 

The  malcontents,  in  a  letter  subscribed  by  some  of  them 
professing  to  represent  the  rest,  set  forth  "  certain  reasons  of 
their  breaking  off  from  the  plantation,"  and  offered  "  certain 
conditions  "  on  which  they  were  willing  to  continue  their 
partnership.  The  "  reasons  of  their  breaking  off"  were  two. 
First,  they  alleged  that  the  Pilgrims  had  "  dissembled  with 
his  majesty  in  their  petition,  and  with  the  Adventurers,  about 
the  French  discipline;"  and,  secondly,  that  they  had  "received 
a  man  into  their  church  who,  in  his  confession,  renounced  all 
universal,  national,  and  diocesan  churches ;"  it  being  under- 
stood that  Lyford,  their  informant,  was  himself  the  man. 
Therefore,  inasmuch  as  the  Pilgrims,  while  "denying  the 
name  of  Brownists,"  were  evidently  conducting  their  church 
affairs  according  to  the  principles  stigmatized  by  that  name, 
"  we,"  said  the  malcontent  Adventurers,  "  should  sin  against 
God  in  building  up  such  a  people."  In  bi-ief,  they  would 
not  be  partakers  of  other  men's  sins ;  and,  to  Puritan  thought, 
the  Brownist  Separation  from  that  National  Church  of  En- 
gland which  all  good  men  were  laboring  to  reform,  was  the 
very  sin  of  schism.  If  there  were  to  be  any  more  co-opera- 
tion between  them  and  the  colony,  certain  concessions  must 
be  made  to  their  "  dislikes."  "  First,  that  as  we  are  partners 
in  trade,  so  we  may  be  in  government  there — as  the  patent 
doth  give  us  power.  Secondly,  that  the  French  discipline 
may  be  practiced  in  the  plantation,  as  well  in  the  circum- 


A.D.  1625.J      THE   PILGRIMS   ABANDONED   BY   PURITANS.  423 

Stances  thereof  as  in  the  substance  ;  whereby  the  scandalous 
name  of  the  Brownists,  and  other  church  differences,  may  be 
taken  away.  Lastly,  that  Mr.  Robinson  and  his  company 
may  not  go  over  to  our  plantation  unless  he  and  they  will 
reconcile  themselves  to  our  church  by  a  recantation  under 
their  hands."  In  short,  what  those  malcontents  demanded 
was  that  the  civil  autonomy  which  the  Pilgrims  had  main- 
tained under  their  compact  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower 
should  be  abolished  to  make  room  for  the  government  of  a 
commercial  company ;  and  that  the  ecclesiastical  system  of 
the  colony  should  be  Puritanism  and  not  Separatism. 

No  such  concessions  would  the  men  of  Plymouth  make. 
In  what  terms  they  expressed  their  rejection  of  the  proposal 
we  are  not  informed,  for  only  that  portion  of  tlieir  letter  has 
been  preserved  which  replies  to  the  charge  of  dissimulation 
concerning  their  agreement  with  the  French  Protestant 
churches.^  On  that  point  they  said:  "Whereas  you  tax  us 
for  dissembling  with  his  majesty  and  the  Adventurers  about 
the  French  discipline,  you  do  us  wrong ;  for  we  both  hold 
and  practice  the  discipline  of  the  French  and  other  Reformed 
churches  (as  they  have  published  the  same  in  the  '  Harmony 
of  Confessions')  according  to  our  means,  in  effect  and  sub- 
stance. But  whereas  you  would  tie  us  to  the  French  disci- 
pline in  every  circumstance,  you  derogate  from  the  liberty 
we  have  in  Christ  Jesus.  Tiie  apostle  Paul  would  have 
none  to  follow  him  in  any  thing  but  wherein  he  follows 
Christ;   much   less   ought   any   Christian  or  church   in  the 

'  The  charge  of  dissimulation  was  founded  on  the  note  of  explanation  which 
they  sent  from  Leyden  to  Sir  John  Wolstenholme,  for  him  to  use  at  his  dis- 
cretion, and  which  he  did  not  use  "lest  he  should  spoil  all."  See  ante^ 
p.  267,  268.  The  note  was  in  these  words:  "Touching  the  ecclesiastical 
ministiy,  namely,  of  pastors  for  teaching,  elders  for  ruling,  and  deacons  for 
distributing  the  church's  contribution ;  as  also  for  the  two  sacraments — 
Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper — we  do  wholly  and  in  all  points  agree  with 
the  French  Eeformed  churches,  according  to  their  public  confession  of  faith." 
In  the  alternative  form  of  the  note,  they  added  a  specification  of  "  some  small 
differences  to  be  found  in  our  practices." 


424        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

world  to  do  it.  The  French  may  err,  we  may  err,  and  other 
churches  may  err,  and  doubtless  do  in  many  circumstances. 
That  honor,  therefore,  belongs  only  to  the  infallible  Word  of 
God  and  pure  Testament  of  Christ,  to  be  propounded  and 
followed  as  the  only  rule  and  pattern  for  direction  herein,  to 
all  churches  and  Christians.  And  it  is  too  great  arrogancy 
for  any  man  or  any  church  to  think  that  he  or  they  have  so 
sounded  the  Word  of  God  to  the  bottom  as  precisely  to  set 
down  the  church's  discipline  without  error  in  substance  or 
circumstance,  so  that  no  other  without  blame  may  digress 
or  differ  in  any  thing  from  the  same.  And  it  is  not  difficult 
to  show  that  the  Reformed  churches  differ  in  many  circum- 
stances among  themselves."  So  steadfastly  did  that  church 
insist  upon  its  liberty ;  and  so  resolutely  did  it  refuse  to  be 
measured  by  any  standard  other  than  the  Scriptures. 

From  the  friendly  and  faithful  minority  of  Adventurers 
there  came  a  large  epistle  addressed  "  To  our  beloved  friends, 
Mr.  William  Bradford,  Mr.  Isaac  AUerton,  Mr.  William  Brew- 
ster, and  the  rest  of  the  general  society  of  Plymouth  in  New 
England."  That  letter,  so  full  of  Christian  wisdom  and  of  a 
purely  Christian  spirit,  while  it  shows  what  the  men  were 
whose  confidence  and  love  the  Pilgrims,  "  unknown  by  face," 
had  gained,  is  a  most  honorable  testimony  to  the  character 
of  the  men  to  whom  it  was  addressed.  The  history  of  the 
church  in  Plymouth  would  be  incomplete  without  it. 

"  Though  the  thing  we  feared  be  come  upon  us,  and  the 
evils  we  strove  against  have  overtaken  us,  we  can  not  forget 
you,  nor  our  friendship  and  fellowship  which  together  we 
have  had  some  years ;  wherein,  though  our  expressions  have 
been  small,  yet  our  hearty  affections  toward  you  (unknown 
by  face)  have  been  no  less  than  to  our  nearest  friends — yea, 
even  to  ourselves.  And  though  your  and  our  friend,  Mr. 
Winslow,  can  tell  you  the  state  of  things  here,  and  what  hath 
befallen  us,  yet — lest  w^e  should  seem  to  neglect  you  to  whom, 
by  a  wonderful  providence  of  God,  we  are  so  nearly  united 
— we  have  thought  good  once  more  to  write  unto  you ;  first, 


A.D.  1625.]      THE  PILGRIMS   ABANDONED  BY  PURITANS.  425 

to  show  you  what  is  here  befallen ;  secondly,  the  reason  and 
cause  of  it ;  thirdly,  our  purposes  and  desires  toward  you 
hereafter. 

"The  former  course  for  the  generality^  here  is  wholly  dis- 
solved ;  and  whereas  you  and  we  were  formerly  sharers  and 
partners  in  all  voyages  and  dealings,  this  way  is  now  so  no 
more,  but  you  and  we  are  left  to  bethink  ourselves  what 
course  to  take  in  the  future  that  our  lives  and  our  moneys  be 
not  lost.  .  .  . 

"The  reasons  and  causes  of  this  alteration  have  been 
these :  First  and  mainly,  the  many  crosses  and  losses  and 
abuses  by  sea  and  seamen,  which  have  caused  us  to  run  into 
so  much  charge  and  debts  and  engagements,  as  we  were  not 
able  to  go  on  without  impoverishing  ourselves,  and  much 
hindering  if  not  spoiling  our  trades  and  callings  here — unless 
our  estates  had  been  greater,  or  our  associates  had  cloven 
better  to  us.  Secondly,  as  there  hath  been  a  faction  and 
siding  among  us  more  than  two  years,  so  now  there  is  an  ut- 
ter breach  and  sequestration  among  us,  and  in  two  parts  of 
us^  a  full  desertion  and  forsaking  of  you,  without  any  intent 
or  purpose  of  meddling  more  with  you.  And  though  we  are 
persuaded  the  main  cause  of  this  their  doing  is  want  of 
money  (for  need  whereof  men  use  to  make  many  excuses), 
yet  other  things  are  by  many  pretended,  and  not  without 
some  color  urged — which  are  these  :  First,  a  distaste  of  you 
there,  for  that  you  are,  as  they  affirm,  Brownists,  condemn- 
ing all  other  persons  and  churches  but  those  of  your  own 
way ;  that  you  are  contentious  and  cruel  toward  such  as  in 
all  points,  both  civil  and  religious,  jump  not  with  you;  and 
that  you  are  negligent,  careless,  wasteful,  and  spend  your 


^  The  Avords  "general"  and  "generality"  seem  to  have  been  used  by 
the  Pilgrims  and  their  friends  as  meaning  what  we  mean  by  such  words  as 
•'  partnership,"  "  company,"  and  "community."  In  this  instance,  "the  gen- 
erality" is  the  joint-stock  company  of  Merchant  Adventurers. 

^  Two  thirds  of  the  whole  number. 


426        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

time  in  idleness  and  talking  and  conferring;^ — secondly,  a 
distaste  and  personal  contempt  of  ns  for  taking  your  parts 
and  striving  to  defend  you  and  make  the  best  of  all  matters 
touching  you,  insomuch  as  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  you  or 
we  are  least  loved  of  them. 

"Now  what  use  either  you  or  we  may  make  of  these 
things  remaineth  to  be  considered ;  and  the  more  for  that 
we  know. the  hand  of  God  to  be  present  in  all  these  things; 
and  he,  no  doubt,  w^ould  admonish  us  of  something  which  is 
not  yet  so  looked  to  and  taken  to  heart  as  it  should  be. 
And  though  it  be  now  too  late  for  us  or  you  to  prevent  or 
stay  these  things,  yet  it  is  not  too  late  to  exercise  patience, 
wisdom,  and  conscience  in  bearing  them,  and  in  carrying 
ourselves  in  and  under  them  for  time  to  come.  And  as  we 
stand  ready  to  embi'ace  all  occasions  that  may  tend  to  the 
furtherance  of  so  hopeful  a  work,  rather  admiring  at  what  is 
than  grudging  at  what  is  not,  so  it  must  rest  in  you  to  make 
all  good  again.  And  if  in  nothing  else  you  can  be  approved, 
yet  let  your  honesty  and  conscience  be  still  approved,  and 
lose  not  one  jot  of  your  innocence  amid  your  many  crosses 
and  afflictions.  Surely,  if  you  upon  this  alteration  behave 
yourselves  wisely  and  go  on  fairly,  as  men  whose  hope  is 
not  in  this  life,  you  shall  need  no  other  weapon  to  wound 
your  adversaries;  for  when  your  righteousness  is  revealed 
as  the  light,  they  shall  cover  their  f^ices  with  shame  that 
causelessly  sought  your  overthrow. 

"  And  although  we  hope  you  need  not  our  counsel  in  these 
things,  having  learned  of  God  how  to  behave  yourselves  in 

^  This,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  Weston's  complaint  after  that  first  win- 
ter of  struggle  with  disease  and  death.  See  ante,  p.  850,  351,  355.  It 
reminds  us  of  Pharaoh's  complaint  against  the  Hebrews:  "Ye  are  idle,  ye 
are  idle,  therefore  ye  say,  Let  us  go  and  do  sacrifice  to  the  Lord,"  Exod. 
v.,  17.  Notwithstanding  the  exposure  of  Lyford's  character,  his  letters,  with 
those  from  Oldham,  and  perhaps  from  other  malcontents  in  the  colony,  seem 
to  have  left,  even  upon  the  authors  of  this  letter,  an  impression  that  such 
accusations  were  "not  without  some  color  urged." 


A.D.  1625.]      THE   PILGRIMS  ABANDONED  BY  PURITANS.  42*7 

all  States  in  this  world,  yet  a  word  for  your  advice  and 
direction,  to  spur  those  forward  who,  we  hope,  run  well 
already : 

"First,  seeing  our  generality  here  is  dissolved,  let  yours  be 
the  more  firm.  Do  not  you  like  carnal  people  who  run  into 
inconveniences  and  evils  by  examples,  but  rather  be  warned 
by  your  harms  to'  cleave  faster  together  hereafter.  Take 
heed  of  long  and  sharp  disputes  and  oppositions;  give  no 
passage  to  the  waters — no,  not  a  tittle.  Let  not  hatred  or 
heart-burning  be  harbored  in  the  heart  of  any  of  you  one  mo- 
ment ;  but  forgive  and  forget  all  former  failings  and  abuses, 
and  renew  your  love  and  friendship  together  daily.  There 
is  often  more  sound  friendship  and  sweeter  fellowship  in  af- 
flictions and  crosses  than  in  prosperity  and  favors;  and  there 
is  reason  for  it,  because  envy  flieth  away  when  there  is  noth- 
ing but  necessities  to  be  looked  on,  but  it  is  always  a  bold 
guest  where  prosperity  shows  itself 

"Although  we  here,  who  are  hedged  about  with  so  many 
favors  and  helps  in  worldly  things  and  comforts,  forget  friend- 
ship and  love,  and  fall  out  oftentimes  for  trifles — you  must 
not  do  so,  but  must  in  these  things  turn  a  new  leaf  and  be  of 
another  spirit.  We  here  can  fall  out  with  a  friend  and  lose 
him  to-day,  and  find  another  to-morrow  ;  but  you  can  not  do 
so — you  have  no  such  choice — you  must  make  much  of  them 
you  liave,  and  count  him  a  very  good  friend  who  is  not  your 
professed  enemy.  We  have  a  trade  and  custom  of  talebear- 
ing, whispering,  and  changing  old  friends  for  new,  and  these 
things  with  us  are  incurable;  but  you  who  do, as  it  were, be- 
gin a  new  world,  and  lay  the  foundation  of  sound  piety  and 
humanity  for  others  who  are  to  follow,  must  suff*er  no  such 
weeds  in  your  garden,  but  nip  them  in  the  head  and  cast 
them  out  forever;  and  must  follow  peace  and  study  quiet- 
ness, having  fervent  love  among  yourselves  as  a  perfect  and 
entire  bond  to  uphold  you  Avhen  all  else  fails  you.  .  .  . 

"If  any  among  you  have  still  a  withdrawing  heart,  and 
will  be  all  to  himself  and  nothing  to  his  neighbor,  let  him 


428         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

think  of  these  things:  the  providence  of  God  in  bringing 
you  there  together;  his  marvelous  preserving  you  from  so 
many  dangers;  the  hopes  that  yet  are  of  effecting  somewhat 
for  yourselves,  and  more  for  your  posterity,  if  hand  join  in 
hand ;  the  woeful  estate  of  him  that  is  alone,  especially  in  a 
wilderness ;  the  succor  and  comfort  which  the  generality  can 
daily  afford, .  .  .  pulling  together  with  the  varieties  of  trades 
and  faculties  employed  by  sea  and  land,  the  gain  of  every 
one  stretching  itself  to  all ;  but  such  as  withdraw  themselves, 
tempting  God  and  despising  their  neighbors,  must  look  for 
no  share  or  part  in  any  of  these  things  —  but  alone  they 
must  work,  and  alone  they  must  eat,  and  alone  they  must  be 
sick  and  die ;  or  else  alone  return  to  England,  and  there  cry 
out  of  the  country  and  the  people,  counting  the  one  fruitless 
and  the  other  merciless.  Besides  all  these  things,  the  con- 
science of  making  restitution,  and  paying  those  debts  and 
charges  which  have  befallen  to  bring  you  there  and  send 
those  things  to  you  which  you  have  had,  must  hold  you  to- 
gether. .  .  . 

"In  a  word :  we  think  it  but  reason  that  all  such  things  as 
there  are,  appertaining  to  the  general,  be  kept  and  preserved 
together,  and  rather  increased  daily  than  any  way  dispersed 
or  embezzled  away  for  any  private  ends  or  intents  whatso- 
ever. We  advise  that,  after  your  necessities  are  served,  you 
gather  together  such  commodities  as  the  country  yields,  and 
send  them  over,  to  pay  debts  and  clear  engagements  here, 
which  are  not  less  than  £1400 — all  which  debts,  besides  ad- 
ventures,^ have  been  made  about  general  commodities  and 
implements — and  for  which  divers  of  us  stand  more  or  less 
engaged.  And  we  dare  say  of  you  that  you  will  do  the  best 
you  can  to  free  and  unburden  us  who  for  your  sakes  and  help 
are  so  much  hazarded  in  our  estates  and  names.  If  there  be 
any  that  will  withdraw  himself  from  the  general,  as  he  must 
not  have  nor  use  any  of  the  general's  goods,  so  it  is  but  rea- 


Capital  invested  in  the  stock  of  the  company. 


A.D.  1625.]      THE  PILGRIMS  ABANDONED   BY  PURITANS.  429 

son  that  he  give  sufficient  security  for  payment  of  so  much 
of  the  debts  as  his  part  cometh  to. 

"  In  a  word  :  since  it  falleth  out  that  all  things  between  us 
are  as  you  see,  let  us  all  endeavor  to  keep  a  fair  and  honest 
course,  and  see  what  time  will  bring  forth,  and  how  God  in 
his  providence  will  work  for  us.  We  are  still  persuaded  you 
are  the  people  that  must  make  a  plantation  and  erect  a  city  17 1 
those  remote  places^  when  all  others  fail  and  return;  and  your 
experience  of  God's  providence  and  preservation  of  you  is 
such  that  we  hope  your  hearts  will  not  now  fail  you. 
Though  your  friends  should  forsake  you  (which  we  ourselves 
shall  not  do  while  we  live,  so  long  as  your  honesty  so  well 
appeareth),  yet  surely  helj)  would  arise  from  some  other 
place  while  you  wait  on  God  with  uj^rightness. 

"To  conclude:  as  you  are  especially  now  to  renew  your 
love  one  to  another,  so  we  advise  you,  as  your  friends,  to 
these  particulars.  First,  let  all  sharpness,  reprehensions,  and 
corrections  of  opposite  persons  be  still  used  sparingly,  and 
take  no  advantage  against  any  for  any  by-respects;  but  rather 
wait  for  their  mending  among  you,  than  mend  them  your- 
selves by  thrusting  away  any  of  w^hom  there  is  hope  of 
good  to  be  had.  Secondly,  make  your  corporation  as  formal 
as  you  can,  under  the  name  of  '  the  Society  of  Plymouth  in 
New  England,'  allowing  some  peculiar  privileges  to  all  the 
members  thereof,  according  to  the  tenure  of  the  patents. 
Thirdly,  let  your  practices  and  course  in  religion,  in  the 
church,  be  made  complete  and  full ;  let  all  that  fear  God 
among  you  join  themselves  thereunto  without  delay;  and 
let  all  the  ordinances  of  God  be  used  completely  in  the 
church,  without  longer  waiting  upon  uncertainties  or  keep- 
ing the  gap  open  for  opposites.  Fourthly,  let  the  worship 
and  service  of  God  be  strictly  kept  on  the  Sabbath,  and — 
both  together  and  asunder — let  the  day  be  sanctified ;  and 
let  your  care  be  seen  on  the  working  days,  every  where  and 
upon  all  occasions,  to  set  forward  the  service  of  God.  And, 
lastly,  be  you  all  entreated  to  walk  so  circumspectly  and 

F  F 


430         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XIX, 

carry  yourselves  so  uprightly  in  all  your  ways,  as  that  no 
man  may  make  any  just  exceptions  against  you,  and,  more 
especially,  that  the  favor  and  countenance  of  God  may  be 
toward  you,  and  you  may  say  with  David,  '  Though  my  fa- 
ther and  my  mother  should  forsake  me,  yet  the  Lord  will 
take  me  up.- 

..."  Good  friends,  have  an  eye  rather  on  your  ill-deserv- 
irigs  at  God's  hand  than  on  the  failings  of  your  friends  to- 
ward you ;  and  wait  on  him  with  patience  and  good  con- 
science, rather  admiring  his  mercies  than  repining  at  his 
crosses,  with  the  assurance  of  faith  that  what  is  wanting 
here  shall  be  made  up  in  glory  a  thousandfold.  Go  on, 
good  friends,  comfortably ;  pluck  up  your  hearts  cheerfully, 
and  quit  yourselves  like  men  in  all  your  difficulties,  that — 
notwithstanding  all  displeasure  and  threats  of  men — the 
work  may  go  on  which  you  are  about,  and  which  is  so  much 
for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  furtherance  of  our  countrymen, 
as  that  a  man  may  with  more  comfort  expend  his  life  in  it 
than  live  the  life  of  a  Methuselah  in  wasting  the  plenty  of  a 
tilled  land  or  eating  the  fruit  of  a  grown  tree."  ^ 


^  An  abstract  of  this  letter  is  given  in  Bradford's  History.  I  have  tran- 
scribed it  almost  entire  from  Bradford's  "Letter-Book"  (Mass.  Historical 
Collections,  iii.,  29-34).  While  abridging  it  by  the  omission  of  here  and 
there  a  sentence,  and  of  some  expressions  that  seemed  tautological  or  re- 
dundant, I  have  also,  in  a  very  few  instances,  taken  the  liberty  of  changing 
the  collocation  of  words  in  a  sentence,  and  of  substituting  one  word  for  an- 
other, where  the  reader  might  otherwise  have  been  compelled  to  pause  and 
inquire  for  the  meaning. 

The  letter  was  subscribed  by  four — "  James  Sherley  (sick),"  being  the  first 
name.  It  was  in  the  handwriting  of  Robert  Cushman ;  and  parts  of  it,  at 
least,  are  in  his  style  of  composition.  In  a  personal  letter  to  Bradford,  writ- 
ten four  days  later  (Dec.  22,  O.  S.),  Cushman  says:  "My  friend  and  your 
friend,  Mr.  Sherley,  who  lieth  even  at  the  point  of  death,  entreated  me,  even 
with  tears,  to  write  to  excuse  him,  and  to  signify  how  it  was  with  him.  He 
remembers  his  hearty  and  (as  he  thinks)  his  last  salutations  to  you,  and  to 
all  the  rest  who  love  our  common  cause."  "  His  unfeigned  love  toward  us 
has  been  such  as  I  can  not  indeed  express.  ...  He  hatli  sometimes  lent 


A.D.  1625.]       PURITANS    ABANDON    THE    PILGRIM    COLONY.        431 

The  "cattle,  cloth,  hose,  shoes,  leather,"  and  other  com- 
modities, sent  by  those  friends,  were  to  be  paid  for  at  prices 
"thought  unreasonable  by  some;"  but  the  new  method  of 
transacting  the  business  seems  to  have  been  really  much 
better  than  that  which  it  superseded.  It  was  better  to  deal 
with  individual  merchants  than  with  an  ill-assorted  company 
of  Adventurers.  Goods  sent  by  friends  in  London,  on  their 
private  account,  were  purchased  by  "  the  generality,"  and 
were  then  disposed  of  to  individuals  by  sale  or  otherwise. 
There  being  no  longer  any  attempt  to  maintain  a  partner- 
ship"inall  voyages  and  dealings"  between  "the  generality" 
at  Plymouth  and  the  other  "generality"  in  London,  it  only 
remained  to  dispose  of  outstanding  engagements,  and  to 
wind  up  the  concerns  of  that  broken  partnership  at  the  ear- 
liest convenient  day.  Before  midsummer,  the  colony  was 
able  to  send,  in  part  payment  for  the  goods  which  it  had 
received  from  Sherley  and  the  others,  "  as  much  beaver  and 
other  furs  as  would  amount  to  upward  of  two  hundred  and 
seventy-seven  pounds  sterling,"  at  the  last  year's  prices."  ^ 

£800  at  one  time  for  other  men  to  adventure  in  this  business — all  to  draw 
them  on.  He  hath,  indeed,  by  his  free-heartedness  been  the  only  glue  of 
the  Company. " 

This  proved  to  be  Cushman's  last  letter.  "  He  wrote,"  said  Bradford, 
"of  the  sickness  and  probability  of  the  death  of  another,  but  knew  not  that 
his  own  was  so  near.  .  .  .  He  purposed  to  be  with  us  '  the  next  ships  ;'  but 
the  Lord  did  otherwise  dispose,  and  had  appointed  him  a  greater  journey  to 
a  better  place."  Sherley  recovered,  and  continued  for  many  years  a  stead- 
fast friend  of  Plymouth  and  its  church. 

'  That  precious  freight  of  furs  was  sent  in  the  Little  Jaines,  the  pinnace 
(ante,  p.  SS-t)  which,  after  various  disasters  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  hav- 
ing rendered  little  sei'vice  to  the  colony,  had  become  the  property  of  Thomas 
Fletcher,  one  of  those  four  Adventurers  who  were  still  pledged  to  the  cause. 
In  company  with  a  larger  vessel,  she  passed  safely  over  the  ocean  ;  but  in 
the  English  Channel,  and  almost  within  sight  of  old  Plymouth — strange  as 
the  story  seems  at  this  day — she  was  "taken  by  a  Turk's  man-of-war  and 
carried  into  Sallee,  where  the  master  and  men  were  made  slaves,  and  many 
of  the  beaver  skins  were  sold  for  four  pence  a  piece  " — furs  not  being  highly 


4:J2         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEAV    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

"  It  pleased  the  Lord  to  give  the  plantation  peace  and 
health  and  contented  minds;"  and  when  their  summer's 
work  was  ended,  and  their  crops  were  gathered  in,  "they 
had  corn  sufficient  and  some  to  spare,  with  other  food." 
After  the  Indian  harvest,  "  when  the  time  of  the  year  begins 
to  grow  tempestuous,"  they  loaded  one  of  their  two  shallops 
with  corn,  and  sent  her,  under  the  command  of  Winslow, 
with  only  landmen  for  sailors,  "forty  or  fifty  leagues  to  the 
eastward,  up  a  river  called  Kennebec,"  to  trade  with  the 
savages.  The  loaded  shallop,  having  "  a  little  deck  over  her 
midships  to  keep  the  corn  dry,"  went  safely  through  the 
autumn  storms  (though  "  the  men  were  fain  to  stand  it  out 
all  weathers  without  shelter"),  and  "brought  home  seven 
hundred  pounds  of  beaver  besides  some  other  furs."  Instead 
of  buying  corn  from  the  Indians  with  "trucking  stuff"  im- 
ported from  Europe  (as  they  had  been  formerly  compelled 
to  do),  they  were  exchanging  the  surplus  product  of  their 
corn-fields  for  furs  to  be  sold  in  England.  Under  God  they 
could  now  rely  on  their  "innocent  trade  of  husbandry,"  not 
only  to  yield  them  food,  but  to  make  them  independent  of 
the  partners  who  had  deserted  them. 

Meanwhile,  there  being  more  need  than  ever  of  some  one 
to  represent  the  colony  in  London,  Captain  Standish  had 
been  commissioned  to  perform  that  service.  He  was  to  con- 
fer with  such  of  the  Adventurers  as  were  still  friendly  to 
the  Pilgrim  church  and  commonwealth,  and  was  also  the 
bearer  of  a  memorial  to  "the  Right  Honorable  his  Majesty's 
Council  for  New  England."  The  memorial,  subscribed  by 
the  governor  (June  28=  July  8),  "with  the  knowledge,  con- 
sent, and  humble  request  of  the  whole  plantation,"  represent- 
ed, briefly  and  modestly,  what  they  had  done  in  less  than 
five  years,  "  having  put  some  life  into  this  then  dreaded  de- 
sign ;"  and  what  hardships  "  incident  to  the  raw  and  imma- 


valued  on  the  African  coast.      How  much  of  the  loss  was  sustained  by  the 
colony  does  not  appear ;  but  to  Fletcher  that  disaster  was  ruin. 


A.D.  1625.]  URITANS    ABANDON    THE    PILGRIM    COLONY.        433 

ture  beginning  of  such  great  exertions"  tliey  had  undergone 
and  were  yet  to  undergo.  It  complained,  "  We  are  now  left 
and  forsaken  of  our  Adventurers,  who  will  neither  supply  us 
with  necessaiies  for  our  subsistence,  nor  sufler  others  that 
would  be  willing  ;  neither  can  we  be  at  liberty  to  deal  with 
others  or  provide  for  ourselves,  but  they  keep  us  tied  to 
them  and  yet  will  be  loose  from  us ;  they  have  not  only  cast 
us  off,  but  entered  into  particular  course  of  trading,  and  have 
by  violence  and  force  taken  at  their  pleasure  our  possession 
at  Cape  Ann  ;i  traducing  us  with  unjust  and  dishonest  clam- 
ors abroad,  disturbing  our  peace  at  home,  and  some  of  them 
threatening  that  if  ever  we  grow  to  any  good  estate  they 
will  then  nip  us  in  the  head."  The  request  of  the  memorial 
was  that,  by  the  intervention  of  the  Council  for  New  En- 
gland, those  Adventurers  might  be  brought  to  a  final  settle- 
ment and  division. 

"  Our  people,"  said  Bradford  in  a  private  letter  (June 
9  =  19),  "will  never  agree  any  way  again  to  unite  with  the 
Company  who  have  cast  them  off  with  such  reproach  and  con- 
tempt, and  have  also  returned  their  bills  and  all  debts  upon 
their  heads."  "I  think  it  best  to  press  a  clearance  with  the 
Company,  either  by  coming  to  a  dividend,  or  by  some  other 
indifferent  course  or  composition.  The  longer  we  hang  and 
continue  in  this  confused  and  lingering  condition,  the  worse 
it  will  be,  for  it  takes  away  from  men  all  heart  and  courage 
to  do  any  thing.  Notwithstanding  any  persuasion  to  the 
contrary,  many  protest  they  will  never  build  houses,  fence 
grounds,  or  plant  fruits  for  those  who  not  only  forsake  them, 
but  use  them  as  enemies.  .  . .  Whereas  if  they  knew  what  they 
should  trust  to,  the  place  would  quickly  grow  and  flourish 
with  plenty." 

-  A  patent  for  Cape  Ann  had  been  taken  out  in  the  names  of  Robert 
Cushman  and  Edward  Winslow  for  themselves  and  their  associates  in  Jan- 
uary, 1624.  Under  that  patent  the  Plymouth  people  had  established  a 
fishing  and  trading  station  there,  of  which  they  were  dispossessed  by  "  some 
of  Lyford  and  Oldham's  friends  and  their  adherents." 


434         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

Captain  Standish's  mission  was  not  in  any  considerable 
degree  successful.  He  found  that  Cushman  was  dead,  the 
"wise  and  faithful  friend"  with  whom  he  was  to  consult, 
and  on  whose  greater  experience  and  skill  in  commercial 
affairs  much  was  depending.  "The  state  was  full  of  trouble," 
for  the  disastrous  reign  of  Charles  I.  had  begun  ;  "  the  plague 
was  very  hot  in  London,  so  as  no  business  could  be  done ; " 
"all  trade  was  dead  and  little  money  stirring."!  Yet  Stan- 
dish  found  opportunity  of  conferring  with  "some  of  the  hon- 
ored council,"  who  promised  their  influence  in  aid  of  the 
plantation.  Having  obtained,  at  great  cost,  a  very  limited 
supply  of  "trading  goods  and  other  most  needful  commodi- 
ties," he  returned  as  a  passenger  in  a  fishing  vessel.  Yet, 
with  so  little  present  success,  he  had  made  a  good  beginning 
of  the  negotiations  which  were  to  result  in  a  final  settlement 
between  the  colony  and  the  Adventurers. 

Welcome  as  was  his  return  after  almost  a  year's  absence 
(April,  1626),  he  brought  with  him  a  new  and  heavy  sorrow. 
Robinson,  the  revered  pastor,  so  "  dearly  beloved  and  longed 
for,"  had  died  in  exile,  not  having  seen  the  Pilgrims'  land  of 
promise.  "  His  and  their  adversaries  had  been  long  and  con- 
tinually plotting  how  they  might  hinder  his  coming  hither, 
but  the  Lord  had  appointed  him  a  better  place."  Letters 
from  Leyden,  announcing  his  decease,  expressed  the  grief  of 
the  waiting  remnant  there.  Roger  White,  who  called  him 
"  my  brother  Robinson,"  wrote  such  words  as  these :  "  He  be- 
gan to  be  sick  on  Saturday  in  the  morning ;  yet  the  next  day, 
being  the  Lord's  day,  he  taught  us  twice.  The  week  after, 
he  grew  weaker  every  day;  yet  he  felt  no  pain  all  the  time 
of  his  sickness.  He  fell  sick  the  twenty-second  of  Febru- 
ary, and  departed  this  life  the  first  of  March.  He  had  a  con- 
tinual inward  ague,  but  free  from  infection,  so  that  all  his 
friends  came  freely  to  him.^     If  either  prayers  and  tears  or 

^  The  deaths  by  plague,  in  London  and  Westminster,  from  Dec.  22,  1624, 
to  Dec.  23,  1025,  were  41,313. 

'  Leyden,  as  well  as  London,  suffered  from  a  visitation  of  the  plague  that 
year. 


A.D.  1625.]  DEATH    OF    ROBINSON.  435 

means  would  have  saved  his  life,  he  had  not  gone  hence. 
But  having  faithfully  finished  his  course,  and  performed  the 
work  which  the  Lord  appointed  him  to  perform  here,  he  now 
rests  with  the  Lord  in  eternal  happiness.  Wanting  him  and 
all  church  governoi's  (not  having  one  at  present  that  is  a 
governing  officer  among  us),  we  still,  by  the  mercy  of  God, 
continue  and  hold  close  together  in  peace  and  quietness,  and 
so  I  hope  we  shall  do,  though  we  be  very  weak — wishing  (if 
such  were  the  will  of  God)  that  you  and  we  were  again  to- 
gether." In  another  letter,  written  by  Thomas  Blossom,  there 
were  similar  expressions  :  "  The  Lord  took  him  away,  even 
as  fruit  falleth  before  it  was  ripe,  when  neither  length  of 
days  nor  infirmity  of  body  did  seem  to  call  for  his  end."  "  The 
loss  of  his  ministry  was  very  great  unto  me,  for  I  ever  count- 
ed myself  happy  in  the  enjoyment  of  it,  notwithstanding  all 
the  crosses  and  losses  otherwise  which  I  sustained."  "We 
may  take  up  that  doleful  complaint  in  the  Psalm  that  there 
is  no  prophet  left  among  us,  nor  any  that  knoweth  how  long. 
Alas !  you  w^ould  fain  have  had  him  with  you,  and  he  would 
as  fain  have  come  to  you."  "  I  know  no  man  among  us  knew 
his  mind  better  than  I  did  about  those  things :  he  was  loth  to 
leave  the  church,  yet  I  know  he  would  have  accepted  the 
worst  conditions  which  in  the  largest  extent  of  a  good  con- 
science could  be  taken,  to  have  come  to  you.  For  myself 
and  all  such  others  as  have  formerly  minded  coming,  it  is 
much  the  same  if  the  Lord  afford  means."  "  If  we  come  at  all 
to  you,  the  means  to  enable  us  so  to  do  must  come  from 
you."i 

John  Robinson  had  lived  only  fifty  years  when  he  rested 
from  his  labors,  leaving  to  the  Church  Universal  a  name 
worthy  of  everlasting  remembrance.  In  Leyden  his  death 
was  lamented  not  only  by  the  remnant  of  his  congregation, 
but  by  others  who  had  known  his  gifts,  his  learning,  and  his 
life  of  self-denying  love  to  Christ.      Winslow  affirms  that 

*  Bradford's  "  Letter  Book." 


436        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XIX. 

ministers  of  the  city  and  learned  men  of  the  university  ac- 
companied his  remains  to  their  grave,  "  bewailing  not  only 
the  loss  which  one  poor  church  sustained,"  but  "some  of 
the  chief  of  them  sadly  affirming  that  all  the  churches  of 
Christ  sustained  a  loss  by  the  death  of  that  worthy  instru- 
ment of  tlie  Gospel."  The  Pilgrim  remnant,  in  their  pover- 
ty, buried  their  pastor  under  the  pavement  of  the  old  cathe- 
dral. Records  at  Leyden  show  that,  on  the  fourth  of 
March,  the  "  preacher  of  the  English  meeting  by  the  Bel- 
fry "  was  "  buried  in  the  Peter's  -  church  ;"  and  that,  on 
the  tenth,  nine  florins  were  paid  for  the  "opening"  and 
"hire"  of  that  English  preacher's  grave.  A  grave  hired 
at  that  price  might  be  opened  for  another  burial  at  the 
end  of  fifteen  years,  but  there  would  be  no  disinterment. 
The  "garnered  dust"  of  Robinson  is  in  the  Leyden  cathe- 
dral, though  we  may  not  know  what  stones  in  the  pave- 
ment cover  it.^ 

Though  depressed  by  the  unsuccessful ness  of  their  latest 
attempt  to  obtain  supplies  from  England,  and  saddened  by 
the  news  from  Leyden,  the  men  of  Plymouth  were  not  whol- 
ly discouraged.  "They  gathered  up  their  spirits,  and  the 
Lord,  whose  work  they  had  in  hand,  so  helped  them,  that 
now  when  they  were  at  the  lowest  they  began  to  rise  again." 
Having  found  by  their  last  autumn's  experience  that  their 
surplus  corn  was  "a  commodity"  of  great  value  in  their 
trade  with  the  Indians,  "they  used  great  diligence  in  plant- 
ing the  same."  While  every  man  planted  for  himself,  and 
all  the  products  of  his  labor  were  to  be  his  own,  the  trade  of 
the  colony  "  was  retained  for  the  general  good,"  and  was  con- 
ducted by  the  governor  and  other  managers  as  trustees  for 
"  the  generality."  Some  unexpected  opportunities  for  ob- 
taining goods  were  so  well  improved  by  the  managers,  that 
"  they  became  well  furnished  for  trade,"  and  were  able  to  pay 

^  Winslow,  in  Young,  p.  392,  393  ;  Dr.  H.  M.  Dexter,  in  "Proceedings 
of  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,"  1872,  p.  184,  186. 


A.D.  1627.]  PROSPERITY    AT    PLYMOUTH.  437 

their  "  engagements  against  the  time,"  and  to  replenish  their 
store  with  clothing,  which  the  people  paid  for  with  the  prod- 
ucts of  their  corn-fields.  "  Cast  down,  but  not  destroyed," 
the  Pilgrim  colony  had  begun  to  prosper. 

To  finish  the  negotiation,  begun  by  Standish,  for  a  final 
settlement  and  division  with  the  Adventurers,  Allerton  was 
sent  to  England.  He  was  to  obtain  from  them  the  best  pro- 
posals they  could  be  persuaded  to  make ;  but  he  had  no  pow- 
er to  conclude  any  contract  till  it  should  be  considered  and 
ratified  by  the  colony.  He  was  also  commissioned  to  borrow 
a  sum  of  money  on  the  personal  security  of  nine  principal 
men  among  the  Planters  (himself  being  one  of  them),  and  to 
purchase  goods  for  their  trade.  Returning  "  at  the  usual  sea- 
son for  the  coming  of  ships"  (April,  1627),  he  brought  with 
him  the  desired  swpply  of  goods  "  safe  and  well-conditioned, 
which  was  much  to  the  comfort  and  content  of  the  planta- 
tion," and  also  the  form  of  a  contract  which  the  Adventurers 
had  already  subscribed,  and  which  "  was  very  well  liked  of 
and  approved  by  all  the  plantation."  For  the  sum  of  eight- 
een hundred  pounds,  in  nine  annual  payments  of  two  hun- 
dred pounds  each,  the  Adventurers  surrendered  all  their  prop- 
erty in  the  colony  to  their  partners  the  Planters.  Eight  of 
the  chief  men,  in  behalf  of  the  colony,  became  personally  re- 
sponsible for  the  successive  payments ;  and  "  thus,"  Plym- 
outh could  exult,  "  all  now  is  become  our  own,  as  we  say  in 
the  proverb,  when  our  debts  are  paid." 

Other  arrangements,  consequent  upon  this  great  change, 
were  made  in  a  liberal  and  enterprising  spirit.  There  re- 
mained in  the  colony  "mingled  among  them"  —  notwith- 
standing removals  to  Virginia  and  "  to  other  places,"  such 
as  Nantasket  and  Cape  Ann  — "  some  untoward  persons," 
perhaps  not  equally  untoward  with  Oldham,  but  such  as  Ly- 
ford  and  Oldham  had  attempted  to  organize  into  a  faction. 
They  were  men  who  had  come  "on  their  particular,"  or  who 
for  other  reasons  had  never  been  admitted  to  "  the  general- 
ity ;"  and  therefore  they  had  no  shares  in  the  stock  of  the 


438         GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

Company,  nor  in  the  new  responsibilities  which  the  colony 
was  assuming".  What,  then,  was  to  be  their  place  in  the 
commonwealth?  What  was  to  be  their  share  in  "the  dis- 
tribution of  things  both  for  the  present  and  future  ?"  The 
governor  and  his  assistants,  "  with  other  of  their  chief  friends, 
had  serious  consideration  how  to  settle  things  "  in  this  re- 
spect;'and  they  came  to  a  wise  conclusion.  "First,  they 
considered  that  they  had  need  of  men  and  strength  both  for 
defense  and  carrying  on  of  business."  Then  they  consid- 
ered that  these  men,  though  untoward,  "had  borne  their  parts 
in  former  miseries  and  wants"  with  the  rest;  and  that  it  was 
"  therefore  (in  some  sort)  but  equal  that  they  should  partake 
in  a  better  condition,  if  the  Lord  be  pleased  to  give  it."  It 
was  a  still  more  urgent  consideration  that  in  no  other  way 
were  those  "untoward  persons"  so  likely  to  be  made  peace- 
able and  contented  members  of  society,  as  by  giving  them 
an  equal  interest  with  others  in  the  commonwealth.  The 
conclusion  was  that  it  would  be  best  "to  take  into  this  part- 
nership or  purchase "  all  free  men  resident  in  the  colony, 
whether  heads  of  families  or  single,  whose  moral  character 
and  discretion  were  such  as  to  authorize  the  expectation  that 
they  would  be  "helpful  in  the  commonwealth." 

That  conclusion  was,  therefore,  submitted  to  "  the  generality" 
in  full  assembly,  and  was  approved.  In  that  meeting  it  was 
agreed,  first,  that  the  trade  should  continue,  as  before,  a  pub- 
lic concern  in  the  hands  of  managers,  all  its  profits  pledged 
to  the  payments  of  the  debts;  next,  that  all  free  men  of 
good  character  and  discretion  should  be  enrolled  as  purchas- 
ers of  the  property  ceded  by  the  late  Adventurers,  every  such 
man  having  one  share,  and  every  father  of  a  family  being  al- 
lowed to  purchase  an  additional  share  for  his  wife  and  for 
each  of  his  children,  while  servants  (whose  time  was  not  their 
own)  were  to  have  only  what  their  masters,  out  of  their  own 
shares,  might  allow  them,  or  "  what  their  deservings  should 
obtain  from  the  company  afterwards;"  and,  thirdly,  that  if 
the  profits  of  the  trade  should  not  be  sufficient  for  the  pay- 


A.D.  1627.]  PROSPERITY    AT    PLYMOUTH.  439 

ment  of  the  eighteen  hundred  pounds  and  other  common 
debts,  every  man,  according  to  tlie  number  of  his  shares, 
should  pay  his  part  of  the  deficiency.  "This  gave  all  good 
content."  Well  might  they  be  content  and  joyful,  for  the 
enforced  communism  under  which  they  had  suft'ered  was  to 
cease,  and  all  the  impulses  to  industry  and  thrift  which  God 
has  incorporated  into  the  constitution  of  human  nature  w^ere 
henceforth  to  have  full  play.  Immediately  measures  were 
taken  for  an  equitable  division  and  allotment  of  what  had 
been  the  common  property  of  the  Adventurers  and  the  Plant- 
ers. With  as  little  delay  as  possible,  lands,  houses,  and  chat- 
tels were  transferred  to  individual  owners.^ 

Another  step  upward  was  soon  taken.  The  governor  and 
other  leading  men,  aware  that  all  the  future  of  the  colony  de- 
pended on  the  discharge  of  "  those  great  engagements,"  the 
nine  annual  payments,  besides  the  sums  which  Standish  and 
Allerton  had  been  compelled  to  borrow^  for  the  colony  at  por- 
tentous rates  of  interest,  were  at  the  same  time  anxiously  in- 
quiring how  to  bring  over  some  of  the  remnant  at  Leyden, 
who,  in  their  deep  depression,  were  so  desirous  of  coming. 
Having  well  considered  what  was  jiossible,  "  they  resolved  to 
run  a  high  course  and  of  great  adventure."  Their  proposal 
was  that  if  they  could  secure  the  co-operation  of  friends  in 
England,  they  would  "hire  the  trade"  of  the  colony  for  six 
years,  and  in  consideration  of  that  exclusive  j)i'ivilege,  to- 
gether with  the  goods  then  in  store,  and  the  boats  and  imple- 
ments belonging  to  the  Company,  and  of  three  bushels  of 
corn  or  six  pounds  of  tobacco  to  be  paid  yearly  by  every 
partner  in  the  recent  purchase  from  the  Adventurers,  they 

^  There  was  an  allotment  of  twenty  acres  of  tillable  land  to  every  share.  A 
cow  and  two  goats,  with  swine  in  proportion,  was  set  apart  for  eveiy  six  shares, 
and  distributed  by  lot  to  be  disposed  of  among  the  owners  as  they  might  agree. 
"They  gave  the  governor  and  four  or  five  of  the  special  men  among  them  the 
houses  they  lived  in ;  the  rest  were  valued  and  equalized  at  an  indifferent 
rate,  and  so  every  man  kept  his  own,  and  he  that  had  a  better  allowed  some- 
thing to  him  that  had  a  worse,  as  the  valuation  went." 


440        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

would  undertake  to  pay  all  "  the  debts  that  then  lay  upon 
the  plantation,"  araounthig  to  twenty-four  hundred  pounds. 
"After  some  agitation  of  the  thing"  in  a  formal  assembly 
(July,  1627),  the  proposal  was  accepted.  Four  tried  friends 
in  London  were  found  to  unite  with  the  eight  Undertakers  at 
Plymouth,  and  the  colony  was  relieved  of  the  pecuniary  obli- 
gations that  lay  so  heavily  upon  it. 

It  was  by  Allerton's  agency  that  this  last  arrangement 
was  completed,  for  he  was  sent  to  England  again  "  with  the 
return  of  the  ships,"  ^  charged  not  only  with  the  duty  of  con- 
summating the  contract  with  the  Adventurers,  but  with  other 
important  trusts.  The  four  London  merchants  whom  he 
brought  into  partnership  with  the  Undertakers  of  the  trade, 
had  been  fast  friends  of  the  Plymouth  church  in  all  its 
trouble  with  the  late  Adventurers,  and  had  been  bitterly  re- 
proached for  not  siding  with  the  Puritan  majority  against 
the  Pilgrims  and  the  going  over  of  the  Leyden  remnant.'^ 
To  them,  therefore,  he  freely  communicated  the  earnest  de- 
sire of  Bradford  and  the  others,  to  "help  over  some  of  their 
friends  from  Leyden ;"  and  he  found  them  ready  to  co-oper- 
ate in  that  part  of  the  design.  Returning  in  the  spring 
(1628),  he  was  able  to  report  that  the  first  payment  of  two 
hundred  pounds  to  the  late  Adventurers  had  been  punctually 
made ;  that  the  other  debts  assumed  by  the  Undertakers  for 
the  colony  had  been  reduced  in  the  same  amount,  and  that 
their  London  partners  and  some  other  friends  were  intending 
"to  send  over  to  Leyden  for  a  competent  number  of  them  to 
be  here  the  next  year  without  fail,  if  the  Lord  pleased  to 
bless  their  journey." 

In  one  thing  the  agent  had  gone  beyond  his  commission. 

^  Communication  \vith  England  had  begun  to  be  in  some  sort  regular. 
The  fishing  vessels  ordinarily  left  England  in  the  winter,  arrived  upon  the 
eastern  coast  of  New  England  in  the  spring,  and  returned  in  the  latter  part 
of  summer  or  early  in  the  autumn. 

^  Sherley  to  Bradford,  in  Bradford's  "  Letter- Book."  —  Mass.  Historical 
Collections,  iii.,  49. 


A.D.  1628-9.]  THE    LEYDEN    REMNANT.  441 

He  was  not  the  agent  of  the  church,  nor,  properly,  of  the 
colony,  but  only  of  the  commercial  Undertakers.  Nor  had 
he  been  in  any  way  authorized  or  requested  by  the  church 
to  select  and  introduce  a  minister;  "for  they  had  been  so 
bitten  by  Mr.  Lyford  that  they  desired  to  know  the  person 
well  whom  they  should  invite  among  them."  But,  advised 
perhaps  by  some  friend  or  friends  in  London,  he  assumed  the 
responsibility  of  bringing  with  him  a  young  man  named 
Rogers,  who,  he  thought,  might  be  acceptable  and  useful  in 
the  ministry  of  the  Word.  The  young  man  was  received  by 
the  church  as  kindly  as  Lyford  was  at  his  coming;  for  they 
could  not  refuse  to  try  what  he  could  do  as  a  preacher. 
"But  they  perceived,  upon  some  trial,  that  he  was  crazed  in 
his  brain ;  so  they  were  fain  to  send  him  back  again  the  next 
year,  and  lose  all  the  charge  that  was  expended  in  his  hither- 
bringing."  Nothing  more  is  known  of  the  unfortunate  young 
man,  save  that  "after  his  return  he  grew  quite  distracted." 
It  is  not  strange  that  "Mr.  Allerton  was  much  blamed"  for 
imposing  such  a  burden  upon  his  brethren,  "they  having 
charge  enough  otherwise." 

Notwithstanding  this  mistake,  and  some  other  things  in 
which  the  proceed'ings  of  the  agent  were  not  satisfactory,  his 
associates  did  not  withdraw  their  confidence  from  him.  "Be- 
cause love  thinks  no  evil,  nor  is  suspicious,  they  took  his  fair 
words  for  excuse,  and  resolved  to  send  him  again  this  year, 
.  .  .  considering  how  well  he  had  done  the  former  business, 
and  what  good  acceptation  he  had  with  their  friends  there ; 
and  also  seeing  sundry  of  their  friends  from  Leyden  were 
sent  for  who  might  be  much  furthered  by  his  means." 

The  London  partners  Avere  hearty  in  their  co-operation ; 
and  before  the  end  of  another  summer  thirty-five  of  the  Ley- 
den remnant  arrived  at  Plymouth.  A  letter  from  Sherley  to 
Bradford  said  of  them,  in  a  tone  of  exultation :  "  Here  are 
now  many  of  your  and  our  friends  from  Leyden  coming  over 
[May  25=  June  4, 1629].  Though,  for  the  most  part,  they  be 
but  a  weak  company,  yet  herein  is  obtained  a  good  part  of 


442        GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

that  end  which  was  first  aimed  at,  and  which  hath  been  so 
Strongly  opposed  by  some  of  our  former  Adventurers.  But 
God  hath  his  working, .  . .  which  man  can  not  frustrate."  An- 
other but  less  numerous  company  of  the  sojourners  at  Ley- 
den  came  over  early  in  the  next  year.  At  their  departure 
from  England,  Sherley,  knowing  that  the  hope  of  eifecting 
the  transportation  of  those  exiles  was  one  reason  why  Brad- 
ford and  the  others  had  undertaken  to  pay  the  debts  of  the 
colony,  expressed  his  hearty  approval.  "In  the  agreement 
you  have  made  with  the  generality,"  said  he,  "  you  have  done 
very  well  both  for  them  and  you,  and  also  for  your  friends 
at  Leyden.  .  .  .  We  are  willing  to  join  with  you,  and,  God  di- 
recting and  enabling  us,  will  be  assisting  and  helpful  to  you, 
the  best  we  possibly  can.  Had  you  not  taken  this  course,  I 
see  not  how  you  could  have  accomplished  the  end  which  you 
first  aimed  at,  and  which  some  others  endeavored  these  years 
past."  As  a  partner  with  the  Undertakers,  he  was  aware 
that  what  they  were  then  doing  would  not  be  commercially 
profitable ;  "  for,"  said  he,  "  most  of  those  who  came  in  May 
last  unto  you,  as  also  of  these  now  sent,  though  (I  hope)  hon- 
est and  good  people,  are  not  like  to  be  helpful  to  raise  profit, 
but  .  .  .  must  somewhile  be  chargeable  to  you  and  us."  But 
"the  burden,"  he  intimated,  would  be  not  on  the  colony, but 
on  the  Undertakers,  and  "  you,"  he  added,  "  will  so  lovingly 
join  together  in  aff*ection  and  counsel  that  God,  no  doubt, 
will  bless  and  prosper  your  honest  endeavors." 

It  was,  indeed,  a  "  burden"  on  the  Undertakers.  The  cost 
of  transporting  those  two  companies  from  Holland  to  En- 
gland, and  thence  across  the  Atlantic,  with  other  expenses 
incident,  was  more  than  five  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  Ar- 
riving at  Plymouth  after  the  planting-time,  in  two  successive 
years,  the  first  company  in  August  and  the  second  in  May, 
their  "corn  and  other  provisions"  must  be  supplied — in  the 
first  instance  more  than  a  year,  in  the  other  almost  a  yeai- 
and  a  half — from  harvests  which  they  had  not  planted:  a 
charoje  which  was  little  less  than  the  cost  of  their  removal. 


A.D.  1629-30.]  THE    LEYDEN    REMNANT.  443 

"  All  they  could  do  in  the  mean  time  was  to  get  them  some 
housing,  and  to  prepare  them  grounds  to  plant  on  against 
the  season."  What  added  to  the  burden,  those  who  selected 
the  second  company  "sent  all  the  weakest  and  poorest," 
thinking  that,  "  if  these  were  got  over,  the  rest  might  come 
when  they  would."  "Yet,"  says  Bradford,  "  they  were  such 
as  feared  God,  and  were  to  us  both  welcome  and  useful,  for 
the  most  part."^  So  the  migration  of  the  exiles,  by  com- 
panies, from  Leyden  to  Plymouth  was  ended. 

Some  of  those  at  Plymouth  who,  though  not  of  the  Pil- 
grim Company,  had  become  partners  in  "  the  generality,"  be- 
gan to  murmur  at  the  great  cost  of  bringing  over  that  Ley- 
den remnant;  for,  though  tliey  were  told  that  "the  burden 
lay  on  other  men's  shoulders,"  were  they  not  bound  to  pay 
the  stipulated  "three  bushels  of  corn  or  six  pounds  of  tobac- 
co "  to  the  Undertakers  ?  To  remove  their  discontent,  it  was 
generously  promised  that,  unless  the  six  years'  profits  of  the 
trade  should  prove  insufficient  for  the  payment  of  the  debts, 
the  tax  should  never  be  demanded,  and  that  promise  "  gave 
them  good  content."  It  is  no  more  than  a  modest  apprecia- 
tion of  the  truth,  when  Bradford,  having  told  by  what  efforts 
and  sacrifices  the  removal  of  those  who  had  been  so  long 
detained  in  Holland  was  at  last  accomplished,  asks  that  it 
may  be  noted  as  "  a  rare  example  of  brotherly  love  and  of 
Christian  care"  on  the  part  of  the  Pilgrim  Church  "in  per- 
forming their  promises  and  covenants  to  their  brethren." 
His  devout  spirit  saw — and  can  not  we  see? — "that  there 
was  more  than  of  man  in  these  achievements."  It  was  God's 
grace,  he  thought,  that  had  "  stirred  up  the  hearts  of  sucli 
able  friends  to  join  with  them  in  such  a  cause  and  to  cleave 
so  faithfully  to  them  in  so  great  adventures" — friends  whose 
faces  the  most  of  them  had  never  seen.  Let  God  be 
praised  ! 


1  Bradford's  "  Letter -Book."  —  Mass.  Historical  Collections,  iii.,  65,66, 
68-70. 


444        GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XIX. 

Plymouth  was  now  passing  through  the  tenth  year  of  its 
struggle  for  existence  ;  and  in  that  conflict  it  had  gained  the 
victory.  Whether  it  should  remain  on  the  soil  which  the 
Pilgrims,  by  persistent  labor,  had  conquered  from  the  wil- 
derness and  were  converting  into  fruitful  fields,  was  no 
longer  a  doubtful  question.  The  body  politic  constituted 
by  a  few  homeless  Englishmen  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower, 
and  maintaining  itself  under  the  simplest  form  of  democracy, 
was  an  established  fact.  The  Governor  of  Plymouth,  de- 
I'iving  his  authority  from  God  through  a  yearly  election  by 
the  people,  was  a  functionary  recognized  by  his  Majesty's 
Council  for  New  England.  The  trade  of  the  colony  with 
the  Indians,  with  English  vessels  resorting  to  the  New  En- 
gland fisheries,  and  with  merchants  in  London,  was  prosper- 
ing, and  was  lifting  it  out  of  its  pecuniary  troubles.  The 
Hollanders  who  wei-e  trying  to  make  a  New  Amsterdam  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Hudson  had  sought  the  friendship  of  the 
Englishmen  at  New  Plymouth,  who  had  once  lived  in  their 
country,  and  with  whom  they  could  hold  communication  in 
their  own  language ;  and  the  Leyden  exiles,  now  fathers  of 
a  growing  commonwealth,  had  enjoyed  the  opportunity  of 
manifesting  their  grateful  remembrance  of  the  hospitality 
that  sheltered  them  in  Holland.  Plymouth,  in  its  tenth 
year  and  with  its  growing  prosperity,  was  still  a  Separatist 
colony,  with  only  a  voluntary  church  that  acknowledged  no 
jurisdiction  of  Ca3sar  or  of  Parliament  over  the  things  that 
are  God's,  and  no  dominion  of  either  a  priestly  or  a  preach- 
ing clergy  over  the  Lord's  free  people.  A  bishop's  commis- 
sary had  been  sent  to  New  England,  but  did  not  venture  to 
show  his  commission  at  Plymouth.  Puritanism  had  struggled 
pertinaciously  to  capture  the  obnoxious  Brownist  colony,  and 
had  given  up  the  conflict.  Though  Robinson  had  died  in 
liis  exile — broken-hearted  but  for  his  trust  in  God — some 
of  his  children,  and  all  but  a  remnant  of  his  flock,  had  come 
at  last  into  the  New  England  which  he  so  longed  for;  and 
the  church  which,  with  "hope  deferred,"  waited  in  vain  for 


A.D.  1630.]  PROSPERITY    AT   PLYMOUTH.  446 

his  coming,  had  found  a  pastor  to  serve  it  in  the  ministry  of 
word  and  doctrine,  and  to  be  associated  with  Brewster  in  its 
government. 

To  explain  how  the  church  found  a  minister  whom  it  could 
venture  to  place  in  the  pastoral  office,  we  must  go  back  to  a 
date  at  which  we  may  take  up  the  story  of  what  Puritanism 
attempted,  with  higher  aims  and  on  a  grander  scale,  after  its 
ignominious  failure  to  circumvent  the  Separatism  of  Plym- 
outh. 


(7n  O  ^^X<J^<r^S^'UCylr^ 


^^i  3^mtfo  ^^ 


£,    ^^^>CuWX. 


PILGRIM   AUTOGRAPHS. 

[The  foregoing  signatures  (in  fac  simile)  are  not  without  value  as  an  illustration 
of  our  story.  "William  Bradford,"  "Edw. Winslow,"  "Willm.  Brewster,"  "Myles 
Standish,"and  "Isaac  Allerton"are  names  with  which  the  reader  has  become  famil- 
iar. "John  Bradford"  was  the  son  of  William,  left  behind  when  the  Maiiflower  sailed 
from  England,  but  afterward  brought  over.  "Tho,  Prence"  (or  Prince),  afterward  a 
son-in-law  of  Brewster,  and  Governor  of  the  colony,  came  in  the  Foitvne,  1G'21. 
"Nathaniel  Morton,"  afterward  Secretary  of  the  colony,  and  author  of  "New  England's 
Memorial,"  came,  at  twelve  years  of  age,  with  his  father,  George  Morton,  in  the  Anne, 
1623.  "Thomas  Cushman"  came,  a  boy  of  fourteen  years,  Avith  his  father  in  the 
Fortune;  he  was  left  under  the  care  of  Governor  Bradford,  and  at  the  death  of 
Brewster,  twenty-eight  years  later,  he  became  the  Ruling  Elder.  "John  Winslow," 
a  brother  of  Edward,  came  in  the  Fortune.  "Constant  Southworth"  and  "Tho. 
Southworth"  were  the  step-sons  of  Governor  Bradford.] 

G  G 


UO  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.      [CH.  XX. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE     BEGINNING    OF    A    PURITAN     COLONY    IN    NEW    ENGLAND, 
AND    WHAT    CAME    OF    IT, 

It  is  no  part  of  the  work  now  in  hand  to  tell  the  story  of 
the  great  Puritan  Exodus,  or  to  describe  minutely  its  be- 
ginning. The  present  design  will  be  completed  when  we 
shall  have  seen  what  Puritanism  becomes  as  soon  as  it  finds 
itself  free  in  the  American  wilderness;  and  how,  notwith- 
standing its  zeal  in  England  for  ecclesiastical  Nationalism, 
and  the  bitter  feeling  which  it  has  cherished  against  the 
schism  of  Separatism,  it  finds,  under  its  new  conditions — in  a 
new  world,  where  the  Church  of  Christ  is  to  be  formed,  in- 
stead  of  being,  as  in  the  old  world,  reformed — no  other  way 
tlian  that  of  calling  out  from  among  the  ungodly  and  pro- 
fane those  "  who  desii-e  to  live  godly  in  Christ  Jesus,"  and 
binding  them  together  "as  the  Lord's  free  people"  in  a  vol- 
untary covenant  of  allegiance  to  their  Saviour  and  of  broth- 
erly helpfulness  to  each  other. 

In  Dorchester,  the  shire  town  of  Dorsetshire,  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  southeast  from  London,  the  Rev. 
John  White  had  long  been  rector  of  Trinity  Church.  He 
was  an  earnest  Puritan,  venerated  for  his  goodness  and  zeal- 
ous for  church  reformation,  though  he  was  one  of  the  many 
who,  either  because  their  scruples  did  not  bring  them  under 
the  penalties  of  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  or  because  they  were 
winked  at  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  retained  their 
livings  under  the  imperfectly  reformed  establishment,  and 
were  called  "Conforming  Puritans."  Dorchester,  though 
not  a  seaport,  was  a  place  of  some  trade ;  and  young  men 
from  its  families  were  going,  year  by  year,  on  fishing  voy- 
ages  to   the   coast  of  New  England.      The   good   rector  of 


A.D.  1624.]     A  PURITAN  COLONY  PROJECTED.  447 

Trinity  Church,  having  served  in  that  place  more  than  twenty- 
years,  had  learned  to  care  for  his  parishioners  abroad  as  well 
as  at  home ;  and  so  forward  was  he  in  plans  and  efforts  for 
the  general  interest  of  religion,  that  he  was  sometimes  called 
"the  patriarch  of  Dorchester."  In  his  solicitude  for  his  own 
parishioners  long  absent  on  voyages  to  the  New  England 
coast,  and  especially  for  their  spiritual  welfare,  he  thought 
how  many  others  endured  the  same  hardships  on  the  sea, 
and  were  subjected  to  the  same  temptations  of  the  wilder- 
ness. He  conceived  the  plan  of  a  settlement  at  some  con- 
venient point,  where  sailors  and  fishermen,  going  ashore, 
might  find  more  comfortable  shelter  and  better  supplies  than 
the  mere  wilderness  could  give  them,  and  might  have  the 
benefit  of  religious  ministrations.  At  his  persuasion,  a  few 
merchants  and  gentlemen  formed  an  association  (1624)  of 
"Dorchester  Adventurers  "  for  that  purpose,  and  contributed 
a  capital  of  three  thousand  pounds.^ 

The  town  of  Gloucester,  famous  as  a  fishing  town,  received 
its  name  long  afterward ;  but  its  place,  on  the  northern 
cape  of  the  great  Massachusetts  Bay,  became  important  as 
early  as  the  first  resort  of  fishing  vessels  to  the  coast.  A 
patent  for  Cape  Ann  and  a  not  well-defined  extent  of  adjoin- 
ing territory,  was  taken  out,  in  the  names  of  Cushman  and 
Winslow  and  their  associates,  for  Plymouth  colony.  It  was 
under  that  patent,  and  therefore  (we  must  infer)  by  some 
arrangement  with  the  London  Adventurers  for  Plymouth 
colony,^  that  the  Dorchester  Adventurers  began  (1624)  their 

*  The  "Planter's  Plea,"  in  Young's  "Chronicles  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  6; 
Hubbard's  "History  of  New  England,"  p.  lOG. 

^  See  ante,  p.  433.  Captain  John  Smith,  in  his  "  General  History,"  1624, 
as  quoted  by  Dr.  Palfrey,  i.,  285,  says  :  "By  Cape  Ann  there  is  a  plantation 
H-beginning  by  the  Dorchester  men,  which  they  hold  of  those  of  New  Plym- 
outh, who  also  by  them  have  set  up  a  fishing  work."  The  date  of  the 
patent  is  Jan,  1=^10,  1624.  It  has  been  suggested  that  there  was  already 
some  beginning  of  a  settlement  before  the  date  of  the  patent.  Very  proba- 
bly the  needs  of  the  fishing  vessels  had  induced  the  building  of  a  house  or 

tAVO. 


448  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XX. 

plantation  at  Cape  Ann.  White  and  his  friends  could  hard- 
ly fail  to  be  in  communication  and  in  sympathy  with  the 
anti-Separatist  or  Puritan  party  among  the  Adventurers  at 
London.  Thus  it  naturally  came  about  that  when  Oldham 
and  Lyford  had  been  expelled  from  Plymouth,  and  when  the 
London  partnership  was  breaking  to  pieces,  the  Dorchester 
Adventurers,  whose  plantation  had  been  far  from  prosperous, 
were  informed  concerning  "  some  religious  and  well-affected 
persons  that  were  lately  removed  out  of  New  Plymouth  out 
of  dislike  of  their  principles  of  rigid  separation."  One  of 
these,  it  is  said,  was  Roger  Conant,  who  seems  to  have  been 
not  unfitly  described  as  "  a  religious,  sober,  and  prudent  gen- 
tleman."^ Lyford  and  Oldham  were  also  considered  to  be 
religious  persons  "well  afiected"  toward  the  Puritan  idea  of 
a  National  Church  and  the  Puritan  method  of  church  reforma- 
tion. On  the  invitation  of  the  Dorchester  Adventurers,  Co- 
nant removed  from  Nantasket  to  Cape  Ann  (1625),  and  un- 
dertook, in  their  behalf,  the  government  of  the  plantation 
there.  Lyford,  by  the  same  invitation,  went  to  exercise 
there  the  ministry  to  which  he  had  been  ordained  in  the  Na- 
tional Church,  and  which  the  incorrigible  Separatists  of  Plym- 
outh had  refused  to  recognize.  Oldham  was  also  invited, 
and  to  him  the  superintendence  of  trade  between  the  new^ 
colony  and  the  Indians  was  offered ;  but  he  preferred  to  re- 
main at  Nantasket,  trading  with  the  Indians  on  his  own  ac- 
count. 

The  whole  story  implies  that  there  was  an  intimate  con- 
nection between  the  Dorchester  men  and  those  Puritan  Ad- 
venturers in  London,  whose  conscientious  antipathies  had  con- 
vinced them  that  "  they  should  sin  against  God  by  building 
up  such  a  people  "  as  those  Pilgrims  were  who  "  renounced 

^  No  mention  is  made  of  him  in  Bradford's  History,  nor  is  any  trace  of 
him  discoverable  at  Plymouth.  Probably  he  was  there  only  as  a  visitor.  It 
may  be  that  he  came  over  in  the  Charity  vi'iih.  Lyford  and  Oldham,  and,  in- 
stead of  remaining  in  Plymouth  with  them,  went  eastward  in  the  same 
vessel. 


A.D.  1625.]  A    PURITAN    COLONY   PROJECTED.  449 

all  universal,  national,  and  diocesan  churches."  When 
Cushman  wrote,  "  We  have  taken  a  patent  for  Cape  Ann," 
the  men  of  Plymouth  assumed  that  the  patent  was  for  them, 
or  at  least  for  the  great  partnership  in  which  they  were 
members ;  and  with  great  alacrity  they  went  into  the  enter- 
prise of  making  an  establishment  at  Cape  Ann.  Immediate- 
ly, though  the  season  was  inconvenient,  they  sent  some  of 
their  men  to  build  stages  for  the  fishery  there,  and  the  next 
year  they  transferred  their  salt  manufacture  from  Plymouth 
to  the  new  plantation,  that  it  might  be  near  the  fishery.  But 
as  soon  as  the  Puritan  majority  of  Adventurers  had  resolved 
to  do  nothing  more  for  Plymouth,  and  to  break  up  the  part- 
nership between  themselves  and  the  Planters,  they  seem  to 
have  determined  on  seizing  Cape  Ann  as  their  own.  "  Some 
of  Lyford  and  Oldham's  friends,  and  their  adherents,"  says 
Bradford — "  some  of  the  west  country  merchants,"  says  Hub- 
bard, showing  incidentally  that  those  "adherents"  of  Old- 
ham's friends  were  the  Dorchester  Adventurers — "  set  out  a 
ship  on  fishing  on  their  own  account;  and  getting  the  start 
of  the  ships  that  came  to  the  plantation,  they  took  away  their 
[the  Plymouth  people's]  stage  and  other  necessary  provisions 
that  they  had  made  for  fishing  at  Cape  Ann  the  year  before 
at  their  great  charge,  and  would  not  restore  the  same  ex- 
cept they  would  fight  for  it."  Captain  Standish  was  there 
to  assert  the  right  of  the  Plymouth  Planters,  and  was  ready 
to  fight  for  it.  But  wiser  counsels  prevailed  against  the 
martial  spirit  of  the  captain,  and  the  dispute  about  that  fish- 
ing-stage was  compromised.  Nevertheless  the  Plymouth 
memorial,  addressed  immediately  afterward  to  his  Majesty's 
Council  for  New  England,  made  complaint  against  those  Ad- 
venturers who  had  broken  their  compact  with  the  Planters : 
"  They  have  not  only  cast  us  ofi",  but  entered  into  a  particu- 
lar course  of  trading,  and  have  by  violence  and  force  taken 
at  their  pleasure  our  possession  at  Cape  Ann."  The  Pil- 
grims at  Plymouth  knew  the  Dorchester  or  Western  Advent- 
urers only  as  allies  or  "  adherents  "  of  those  London  Advent- 


450  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND  CHURCHES.      [CH.  XX. 

urers  whose  Puritan  scrupulousness  would  not  permit  them 
to  co-operate  in  building  up  a  schismatic  colony.  Puritan- 
ism, not  schism,  was  to  characterize  the  new  plantation,  and 
the  expectation  was  that  such  an  enterprise  would  be  in 
favor  with  God  and  with  godly  men.^ 

Yet  the  fishing  settlement  under  Puritan  patronage  had 
its  disasters.  At  the  end  of  its  second  year,  the  Dorchester 
Adventurers  were  discouraged.  Their  expectations  of  present 
advantage  were  not  likely  to  be  realized.  A  large  part  of 
their  three  thousand  pounds  had  been  lost  in  unsuccessful 
voyages.  The  men  whom  they  employed  in  their  plantation, 
though  unsuspected  of  any  Brownist  opinions,  were  not  the 
men  for  such  a  work.  "  Being  ill-chosen  and  ill-commanded, 
they  fell  into  many  disorders,  and  did  the  company  little 
service."  The  well-intending  Adventurers  had  begun  a  great 
work,  without  knowing — what  Plymouth  might  have  taught 
them — that  the  successful  founders  of  a  colony,  instead  of 
hiring  whom  they  can  find  to  go  and  "  bear  the  brunt,"  must 
go  in  person,  full  of  the  inspiring  conception,  and  ready  to 
sufier  and  to  die  for  it.  Unwilling  to  expend  more  money 
upon  the  unremunerative  enterprise,  they  abandoned  it ;  and 
we  may  suppose  that  they  did  so  not  without  something  of 
self-reproach  that  they  had  permitted  their  veneration  foi 
the  patriarch  of  Dorchester  to  involve  them  in  so  great  a 
loss.  Ought  they  not  to  have  remembered  that  the  good 
man,  being  a  Puritan  minister,  could  not  be  expected  to  have 
much  wisdom  in  secular  aflTairs?  They  took  order  for  the 
sale  of  their  joint-stock  property  and  the  breaking  up  of  their 
plantation.  Yet  they  "  were  so  civil  to  those  that  were  em- 
ployed under  them  as  to  pay  them  all  their  wages,  and  prof- 
fered to  transport  them  back  whence  they  came."  The  ma- 
jority of  "  the  land-men "  at  Cape  Ann  accepted  the  oflfer 
and  went  home.     "  But  a  few  of  the  most  honest  and  indus- 


^  Compare  Bradford's  account  of  the  conflict  at  Cnpe  Ann  (p.  196,  197J 
with  Hubbard's  (p.  110,  111). 


A.D.  1626. J  A    PURITAN    COLONY    BEGUN.  461 

trious  resolved  to  stay  behind,  and  to  take  charge  of  the 
cattle  sent  over  the  year  before;  which  they  performed  ac- 
cordingly." 

One  of  those  few  was  Roger  Conant,  whom  the  Advent- 
urers had  appointed  to  govern  their  plantation,  and  who 
had  seen  at  Plymouth  what  could  be  done  by  perseverance. 
Convinced  that  every  attempt  to  make  a  fishing  station  the 
nucleus  of  a  colony  would  end  in  failure,  he  had  already  se- 
lected a  more  hopeful  place  for  a  new  beginning.  Through 
a  brother  of  his  in  England,  he  was  in  communication  with 
the  venerated  Puritan  minister  at  Dorchester;  and  to  him 
as  well  as  to  other  friends  he  intimated  that  a  settlement 
might  be  more  advantageously  begun  at  a  place  "  called 
Naumkeag,  a  little  to  the  westward  "  from  Cape  Ann,  and 
"  might  prove  a  receptacle  for  such  as  iqjon  the  account  of 
religion  would  be  willing  to  begin  a  foreign  plantation  in 
this  part  of  the  world."  Already,  with  Charles  on  the  throne, 
and  Laud  his  chief  counselor  in  ecclesiastical  aifairs,  men's 
hearts  were  "  failing  them  for  fear  and  for  looking  after  those 
things  that  were  coming  "  upon  England ;  and  Puritans  as 
well  as  Separatists  were  beginning  to  think  of  foreign  plan- 
tations "  on  the  account  of  religion."  What  Conant  pro- 
posed was  a  distinctively  Puritan  colony,  where  Puritan 
principles,  abhorrent  alike  of  popery  and  prelacy  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  schism  on  the  other,  should  have  free  course  and 
be  glorified.  White,  grieved  at  the  failure  of  his  first  at- 
tempt, but  not  disheartened,  wrote  to  Conant,  assuring  him 
that  if  he  and  three  others,  known  to  be  honest  and  prudent 
men,  who  had  been  employed  by  the  Adventurers,'  would 
remain  at  Naumkeag,  they  should  not  be  forsaken.  He  un- 
dertook to  provide  a  patent  for  them  at  their  new  settle- 
ment ;  and  "  would  send  them  whatever  they  should  write 


'  The  three  were  John  Woodbury,  John  Balch,  and  Peter  Palfrey.  The 
learned  and  honored  historian  of  New  P>ngland  is  descended  from  that  Pal- 
frey who  was  one  of  the  four  Puritan  founders  of  Massachusetts. 


452  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.XX. 

for,  either  men  or  provision,  or  goods  wherewith  to  trade 
with  the  Indians."  They  accepted  the  offer;  and  yet,  before 
any  return  had  come  from  England,  Lyford,  having  received 
''a  loving  invitation"  to  Virginia,  and  being  "thither  bound," 
persuaded  almost  the  entire  company  to  "recoil  from  their 
engagement  for  fear  of  the  Indians  and  other  inconveniences." 
But  Conant,  "  as  one  inspired  by  some  superior  instinct," 
was  firm.  He  "  peremptorily  declared  his  mind  to  wait  the 
providence  of  God  in  that  place  where  they  now  were — yea, 
though  all  the  rest  should  forsake  him."  The  "  superior  in- 
stinct "  prevailed.  Lyford  went  where  his  character  was 
less  likely  to  become  notorious;  and  we  know  not  how  many 
went  with  him.  But  the  three  designated  associates  of  Co- 
nant, "  observing  his  confident  resolution,  at  last  concurred 
with  him."  They  knew  the  danger,  but  they  had  the  inspira- 
tion of  a  purpose  above  and  beyond  themselves,  and  "  stayed 
to  the  hazard  of  their  lives."  ^ 

John  White,  the  patriarch,  had  not  overestimated  his  own 
influence  with  the  "knights  and  gentlemen  about  Dorches- 
ter," and  he  kept  his  word  with  Conant.  He  made  such  ar- 
rangements that  "the  Council  established  at  Plymouth  for 
the  planting,  ruling,  ordering,  and  governing  of  New  En- 
gland," by  a  patent  under  their  common  seal  (March  19  =  29, 
1628),  "bargained  and  sold  "  to  a  company,  not  of  merchants, 
but  of  two  knights  and  four  gentlemen  in  the  west  of  En- 
gland, "  that  part  of  New  England  which  lies  between  Mer- 
rimack and  Charles  rivers  in  the  bottom  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bay." 2  Then  he  brought  the  six  patentees  into  negotiation, 
and  ultimately  into  partnership,  "with  several  other  religious 

^  Such  is  Conant's  own  statement — the  hist  phrase  being  his  hxnguage — in 
a  petition  to  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  dated  May,  1G71. 

^  More  exactly,  the  territory  conveyed  by  the  patent  included  the  land  with- 
in the  space  of  three  miles  south  from  any  part  of  Charles  River  and  three 
miles  north  from  any  part  of  the  Merrimack,  and  also  three  miles  south  of  the 
southernmost  part  of  what  was  then  called  Massachusetts  Bay.  All  former 
patents  for  lands  within  those  limits  seem  to  have  been  considered  as  void. 


A.D.  1628.]  A   PUEITAN   COLONY    BEGUN.  453 

persons  of  like  quality  in  and  about  London,"  among  whom 
some  merchants  were  included  as  well  as  "  knights  and  gen- 
tlemen." ^  Already  there  had  been  among  Puritans  in  Lin- 
colnshire discourse  about  New  England  and  the  planting  of 
the  Gospel  there ;  and  from  Lincolnshire  there  had  been  "  let- 
ters and  messages  to  some  in  London  and  the  west  country." 
There  were  no  newspapers  through  which  the  thoughts  that 
were  moving  simultaneously  in  so  many  minds  could  find 
public  expression ;  nor  was  it  the  custom  of  those  times  to 
hold  conventions  for  the  discussion  of  such  a  scheme.  But 
the  scheme  of  a  Puritan  colony  was  agitated  in  the  methods 
which  were  then  possible;  and  the  Company  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  was  organized  to  prosecute  the  work  of  planting  and 
governing  the  territory  for  which  it  had  a  patent  from  his 
Majesty's  Council  for  New  England.  John  White  was  per- 
forming his  promise  to  Roger  Conant. 

The  new  Company  was  in  earnest.  It  was  not  a  commer- 
cial company  looking  for  dividends  on  the  capital  invested ; 
it  had  higher  aspirations.  It  was  rather  a  society  for  Puri- 
tan colonization,  and  the  end  it  aimed  at  was  not  gain  to  its 
members,  but  achievement  for  the  kingdom  of  God.  Having 
obtained,  by  purchase  from  the  Plymouth  Council,  the  owner- 
ship of  an  adequate  territory,  it  was  undertaking  to  plant  in 
that  territory  a  Christian  state  after  the  Puritan  theory. 
Some  men  were  "  offering  the  help  of  their  purses  if  fit  men 
might  be  procured  to  go  over,"  and  the  question  was,  wheth- 
er any  such  men — "  fit "  to  be  the  founders  of  Puritan  civil- 


'  The  original  patentees  ' '  about  Dorchester  "  were  ' '  Sir  Henry  Boswell, 
Sir  John  Young,  knights,  Thomas  Southcoat,  John  Humphrey,  John  Endi- 
cott,  and  Simon  Whetcomb,  gentlemen.''''  Some  of  the  "religious  persons" 
in  and  about  London  were  such  as  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  John  Winthrop, 
Isaac  Johnson,  Matthew  Cradock,  Increase  Nowell,  and  (not  to  extend 
the  catalogue)  Theophilus  Eaton,  aftenvard  governor  of  a  New  England  col- 
ony, and  Thomas  GofFe,  who  had  been  one  of  the  Adventurers  for  the 
Plymouth  Pilgrims,  and  had  found  their  Brownism  too  much  for  his  Puritan 
conscience. 


454  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XX. 

ization  in  the  New  England  wilderness — could  be  procured. 
Captain  John  Endicott,  one  of  the  original  patentees,  "  a  man 
well  known  to  divers  persons  of  good  note,"  was  judged 
"fit;"  and  being  invited  to  lead  and  govern  the  proposed 
plantation,  he  "  manifested  much  willingness  to  accept  the 
offer."  The  pioneer  expedition  was  soon  fitted  out ;  and  the 
Abigail,  freighted  with  forty-six  and  a  half  tons  of  goods, 
and  having  for  passengers  Captain  John  Endicott  and  his 
wife,  with  perhaps  forty  more,  sailed  from  Weymouth  (the 
port  of  Dorchester)  for  Naumkeag  (June  20:=30,  1628). 

Arriving  at  his  destination,  Endicott,  in  the  name  of  the 
new  Company  which  had  undertaken  to  "erect  a  new  colony 
on  the  old  foundation,"  assumed  the  government.  He  found, 
at  first,  some  discontent  on  the  part  of  the  old  planters,  who 
feared  some  encroachment  on  their  rights;  but,  "by  the  pru- 
dent moderation  of  Mr.  Conant,"  the  disagreement  between 
them  and  the  new-comers  was  "  quietly  composed."  In  mem- 
ory of  that  pacification,  the  plantation  at  Naumkeag  received 
not  long  afterward  a  Hebrew  name  from  the  Old  Testament — 
Salem,  signifying  Peace.  The  leading  men,  both  of  the  old 
Planters  and  of  those  who  came  with  the  new  governor, 
were  of  one  mind — religiously  engaged  in  the  great  design 
for  which  the  Massachusetts  Company  was  formed. 

All  the  preparation  which  Conant  and  his  few  compan- 
ions had  been  able  to  make  for  the  reinforcement  was  inad- 
equate. The  population  to  be  provided  for  was  increased  by 
a  body  of  "servants"  who  came  over,  either  in  the  Abigail 
or  in  some  other  vessel,  to  work  for  the  Company.  Important 
as  their  labor  was  to  the  colony,  it  could  not  feed  them  with 
food  convenient  for  them  after  the  privations  of  their  voyage, 
nor  shelter  them  as  their  condition  required.  "Arriving 
there  in  an  uncultivated  desert,  many  of  them,  for  want  of 
wholesome  diet  and  convenient  lodgings,  were  seized  with 
the  scurvy  and  other  distempers,  which  shortened  many  of 
their  days,  and  prevented  many  of  the  rest  from  performing 
any  great  matter  of  labor  that  year  for  advancing  the  work 


^  C^uucofp 


A.D.  1629.]  A   PURITAN    COLONY    BEGUN.  455 

of  the  plantation."  1  While  the  colony  was  in  that  distress, 
its  governor,  understanding  that  at  Plymouth  there  was  a 
physician  "that  had  some  skill  that  way,  and  had  cured  di- 
vers of  the  scurvy  and  others  of  other  diseases,"  wrote  to  the 
older  colony  for  help.  Deacon  Samuel  Fuller  had  long  been 
the  beloved  physician  of  the  Pilgrim  church.  Certainly  he 
was  experienced  in  the  practice  of  his  art ;  perhaps  he  had 
acquired  at  Leyden  the  medical  science  of  that  age.  He 
was  sent  to  the  relief  of  the  sufterers  at  Naumkeag ;  and  his 
service  there  was  the  beginning  of  affectionate  intercourse 
between  the  two  colonies,  the  liberalized  Separatists  of  the 
one  and  the  godly  Puritans  of  the  other  having  learned  that 
the  differences  which  so  alienated  each  party  from  the  other 
in  their  native  country  were  comparatively  unimportant  in 
New  England.  The  frank  and  generous  letter  which  Gov- 
ernor Endicott  wrote  to  Governor  Bradford  after  Fuller's 
visit  is  a  significant  fact  in  our  story ;  for  a  letter  is  some- 
times as  much  of  a  fact  in  history  as  a  coronation  or  a  bat- 
tle. A  transcript  of  the  letter  (May  11=21,  1629)  will  be 
more  to  our  purpose  than  any  description  of  it  could  be : 

"7b  the  Worshipful  and  my  right  icorthy  Friend,  William 
Bradford,  Esq.,  Goveryior  of  New  Plymouth,  these: 
"  Right  Worthy  Sir,  —  It  is  a  thing  not  usual  that  serv- 
ants to  one  Master  and  of  the  same  household  should  be  stran- 
gers ;  I  assure  you  I  desire  it  not — nay,  to  speak  more  plainly, 
I  can  not  be  so  to  you.  God's  people  are  marked  with  one 
and  the  same  mark,  and  sealed  with  one  and  the  same  seal, 
and  have,  for  the  main,  one  and  the  same  heart  guided  by 
one  and  the  same  Spirit  of  truth ;  and  where  this  is  there 
can  be  no  discord — nay,  here  must  needs  be  sweet  harmony. 
The  same  request  with  you  I  make  unto  the  Lord,  that  we 
may,  as  Christian  brethren,  be  united  by  a  heavenly  and  un- 
feigned love,  bending  all  our  hearts  and  forces  in  furthering 


^  Hubbard,  p.  1 10. 


^ 


456        GEiS^ESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.         [CH.  XX. 

a  work  beyoiid  our  strength,  with  reverence  and  fear  fasten- 
ing our  eyes  always  on  Him  that  only  is  able  to  direct  and 
prosper  all  our  ways. 

"I  acknowledge  myself  much  bound  to  you  for  your  kind 
love  and  care  in  sending  Mr.  Fuller  among  us;  and  I  re- 
joice much  that  I  am  by  him  satisfied  touching  your  judg- 
ments of  the  outward  form  of  God's  worship.  It  is,  as  far 
as  I  can  yet  gather,  no  other  than  is  warranted  by  the  evi- 
dence of  truth,  and  the  same  which  I  have  professed  and 
maintained  ever  since  the  Lord  in  mercy  revealed  himself  to 
me;  being  very  far  different  from  the  common  report  that 
hath  been  spread  of  you  touching  that  particular.  But  God's 
children  must  not  look  for  less  here  below,  and  it  is  the  great 
mercy  of  God  that  he  strengthens  them  to  go  through  with  it. 

"  I  shall  not  need  at  this  time  to  be  tedious  unto  you ;  foi", 
God  willing,  I  purpose  to  see  your  face  shortly.  In  the  mean 
time,  I  humbly  take  my  leave  of  you,  committing  you  to  the 
Lord's  blessed  protection,  and  rest. 

"  Your  assured  loving  friend  and  servant, 

"  John  Endicott." 

It  appears,  then,  that  no  sooner  had  Endicott  and  the  Puri- 
tans who  came  with  him  begun  to  breathe  the  air  of  the  free 
wilderness,  than  they  began  to  lose  the  antipathy  of  their 
])arty  against  Separatism,  and  to  see  that  the  theory  of  the 
Pilgrims  concerning  "the  outward  form  of  God's  worship"^ 
was  "  warranted  by  the  evidence  of  truth."  But,  meanwhile, 
the   Massachusetts    Company ,  in    England    was   watchfully 

^  In  the  language  of  those  times,  and  especially  of  those  parties,  "the  out- 
ward form  of  God's  worship  "  included  much  more  than  the  particular  dis- 
putes ahout  a  certain  book  of  printed  prayers  imposed  on  all  worsliipers  by 
the  state.  It  was  the  more  comprehensive  question  concerning  "the  out- 
ward form" — the  constitution  and  order — of  the  worshiping  assembly  or 
society,  or,  in  other  words,  the  nature  and  organization  of  the  visible  church. 
Such,  evidently,  was  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  in  Endicott's  letter,  and  in  the 
tnlk  between  liim  and  Deacon  Fuller. 


A.D.  1629.]  A    PURITAN    COLONY    BEGUN.  457 

guarding  itself  against  complicity  with  Separatism.  Its 
members  were  loyal  to  the  Church  of  England,  praying  and 
(as  they  had  opportunity)  working  for  its  welfare ;  though 
they  were  constrained  to  bear  witness,  in  one  way  or  anoth- 
er, against  the  superstitious  ceremonies,  the  popish  vestments, 
the  stinted  and  ill-reformed  liturgy,  the  prelatical  govern- 
ment, and  the  canon  law.  To  them  no  less  than  to  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  a  renunciation  of  membership  in  the 
National  Church  was  schism,  and  schism  was  sin.  It  was, 
therefore,  without  any  disingenuousness  or  self-deception  that 
they  protested  against  the  "  suspicious  and  scandalous  re- 
ports raised  "  in  disparagement  of  their  undertaking,  "  as  if, 
under  the  color  of  planting  a  colony,  they  intended  to  raise 
and  erect  a  seminary  of  faction  and  separation."  It  was  in 
all  honesty  that  they  imputed  such  reports  to  "  the  jealousy 
of  some  distempered  mind  " — or  to  "  a  malicious  plot  of  men 
ill-affected  to  religion,  endeavoring,  by  casting  the  under- 
takers into  the  jealousy  of  state,  to  shut  them  out  of  those 
advantages  which  otherwise  they  might  expect  from  the  con- 
tinuance of  authority."  ^ 

Doubtless,  then,  it  was  with  a  hearty  dislike  of  Separatism, 
and  with  an  unfeigned  adherence  to  the  princi})le  of  ecclesi- 
astical Nationalism,  that  the  associated  Puritans  who  were 
attempting  to  found  a  colony  in  New  England  asked  and 
obtained  from  Charles  I.,  in  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign 
(March  4  =  14,  1629),  a  confirmation  of  their  patent,  and  a 
royal  charter  of  incorporation,  with  ample  powers  for  the  col- 
onization and  government  of  their  territory.  What  had  been 
only  a  partnership  or  voluntary  society  became  a  body  poli- 
tic, entitled  "The  Governor  and  Company  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  in  New  England."  It  proceeded  under  its  charter  with- 
out any  change  in  its  organization  or  its  plans.  Its  records 
show  that,  before  the  date  of  the  charter,  large  preparations 
for  another  expedition  were  in  progress ;  and  in  a  catalogue 

^  The  "Planter's  Plea,"  in  Young's  "  Chron.  of  Massachusetts,  "p.  15. 


458  GENESIS   OF  THE   NEW   ENGLAND   CHURCHES.  [CH.  XX. 

of  necessaries  which  the  Company  was  "  to  provide  to  send 
for  New  England,"  the  first  and  most  conspicuous  item  is 
"ministers." 

A  letter,  written  twelve  days  before  the  date  of  the  char- 
ter, by  Matthew  Cradock,  Governor  of  the  Company,  in- 
formed Endicott  that  the  Company  had  been  greatly  enlarged 
since  he  left  England,  and  that  three  vessels,  and  perhaps  an- 
other, were  to  sail  in  a  few  days  with  supplies  and  reinforce- 
ments for  the  colony.  To  us  who  read  it  to-day,  some  parts 
of  that  letter  seem  almost  like  a  letter  from  the  executive  of 
a  missionary  society  to  a  distant  missionary.  After  some 
business  details,  the  Governor  of  the  Company  said  to  the 
Governor  of  the  Colony  :  "We  are  very  confident  of  your  best 
endeavors  for  the  general  good,  and  we  doubt  not  that  God 
will  in  mercy  give  a  blessing  upon  our  labors.  We  trust 
you  will  not  be  unmindful  of  the  main  end  of  our  plantation, 
...  to  bring  the  Indians  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Gospel ; 
which  that  it  may  be  the  speedier  and  better  effected,  the 
earnest  desire  of  our  whole  Company  is  that  you  have  a  dili- 
gent and  watchful  eye  over  our  own  people,  that  they  live 
unblamable  and  without  reproof,  and  demean  themselves 
justly  and  courteously  toward  the  Indians,  thereby  to  draw 
them  to  affect  our  persons  and  thereby  our  religion  ;  as  also  " 
that  you  "  endeavor  to  get  some  of  their  children  to  train  up 
to  reading,  and  consequently  to  religion,  while  they  are 
young ;  and  herein,  to  young  or  old,  to  omit  no  good  oppor- 
tunity that  may  tend  to  bring  them  out  of  that  woeful  state 
they  are  now  in — in  which  case  our  predecessors  in  this  land 
sometime  were.  .  .  .  But  God,  who  out  of  the  boundless  ocean 
of  his  mercy  hath  showed  pity  and  compassion  to  our  land, 
is  all-sufficient,  and  can  bring  this  to  pass  which  we  now  de- 
sire in  that  country  likewise.  Only  let  us  not  be  wanting  on 
our  parts,  now  we  are  called  to  this  work  of  the  Lord's ; 
neither,  having  put  our  hands  to  the  plow,  let  us  look  back, 
but  let  us  go  on  cheerfully,  and  depend  upon  God  for  a  bless- 
ing upon  our  labors." 


A.D.  1629.]  A   PUEITAN    COLONY    BEGUN.  459 

In  that  connGctioD,  the  letter  announces  the  Company's 
resolution  "to  send  over  two  ministers  at  the  least"  in  the 
expedition  which  w^as  so  nearly  ready ;  and  it  adds,  for  the 
satisfaction  of  Endicott,  "Those  we  send  you  shall  be  by  the 
approbation  of  Mr.  White,  of  Dorchester,  and  Mr.  Daven- 
port." ^  It  was  in  accordance  with  the  Puritan  ideas  which 
were  the  bond  of  union  to  the  Company,  that  the  supply  of 
ministers  to  its  colony  should  be  provided  and  controlled  by 
the  corporation. 

A  resolution  had  been  taken  by  the  Company  to  send 
"two  ministers  at  the  least;"  but  whom  should  they  send? 
Whom  could  they  find  that  w^ould  be  at  once  fit  for  so  impor- 
tant a  mission,  and  willing  to  go  ?  They  must  take  care  not  to 
send  another  Lyford.  I*'ive  weeks  after  Governor  Ci-adock's 
letter  to  Endicott,  "intimation  w^as  given"  at  a  meeting  of 
the  Company,  "by  letters  from  Mr.  Isaac  Johnson,"  the  largest 
contributor  to  the  common  stock,  and  one  of  the  most  efii- 
cient  promoters  of  the  design,  "  that  one  Mr.  Higginson,  of 
Leicester,  an  able  minister,"  was  willing  to  go  on  that  mis- 
sion.2  The  minister  thus  nominated  was  not  unknown  to 
members  of  the  Company;  for  he  was  a  brother-in-law  of 
Theophilus  Eaton,  and  Increase  Nowell  (present  at  the  meet- 
ing) was  his  cousin.  He,  then,  "  being  approved,"  says  the 
record,  "for  a  reverend,  grave  minister, fit  for  our  present  oc- 

^  The  entire  letter  is  in  Young's  "  Chron.  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  131-137. 

2  Isaac  Johnson's  seat  was  at  Clipsham,  in  the  county  of  Rutland,  and  it 
may  be  assumed  that,  living  so  near  to  Leicester,  he  knew  Higginson  person- 
ally as  well  as  by  reputation.  Johnson's  standing  in  England  appears  from 
the  fact  that  his  wife,  the  Lady  Arbella,  was  a  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Lin- 
coln. His  commendation,  even  if  Higginson  had  been  unknown  to  the  rest 
of  the  Company,  was  enough.  About  eighteen  months  later,  he  and  his  wife 
found  their  graves  in  Massachusetts,  the  Lady  Arbella  at  Salem,  the  honored 
and  lamented  Isaac  Johnson,  ' '  a  holy  man  and  wise, "  at  Boston.  His  grave, 
on  the  lot  which  he  had  chosen  for  his  dwelling-place,  gave,  as  tradition  tells 
us,  a  sort  of  consecration  to  what  became  the  first  burial-ground  in  that 
town,  the  one  now  known  as  "the  King's  Chapel  Burial-ground. — "Chron. 
of  Massachusetts,"  p.  317,  318. 

H  II 


460  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XX. 

casions,"  Mr.  John  Humphrey,  one  of  the  most  eminent  mem- 
bers of  the  Company,  active  from  the  first  conception  of  the 
enterprise  at  Dorchester,  was  requested  "  to  ride  presently  to 
Leicester,  and,  if  Mr.  Higginson  may  conveniently  be  had  to 
go  this  present  voyage,"  to  deal  with  him.  The  first  of  the 
conditions  proposed  by  the  Company  as  a  basis  for  negotia- 
tion with  Higginson  was  that  his  removal  should  be  "  with- 
out scandal  to  that  people;"  for  though  he  had  once  been 
the  incumbent  of  one  of  the  parish  churches  in  Leicester,  his 
Puritanism  had  advanced  to  the  stage  of  nonconformity, 
and  he  was  at  that  time  a  lecturer,  supported  by  voluntary 
contributions  from  former  parishioners  and  other  friends. 
Those  friends,  therefore,  were  to  be  consulted ;  and  his  re- 
moval must  be  with  their  approbation.  Mr.  Hildershara  was 
also  to  be  consulted — the  venerable  arch-Puritan  of  Ashby- 
de-la-Zouch,  who  had  been  more  than  once  silenced  for  non- 
(ionformity,  and  then  restored — who  had  for  the  same  cause 
been  imprisoned  by  the  High  Commission,  fined  two  thousand 
pounds,  degraded  from  the  ministry,  excommunicated,  and 
then  again  restored  because  the  Earl  of  Huntington  was  his 
kinsman.  His  approbation  must  be  had  before  making  the 
contract.  So  thoroughly  did  the  Company  of  Massachusetts 
Bay,  even  from  its  beginning,  identify  itself  with  the  Puritan 
party  in  the  Church  of  England,  and  with  the  most  advanced 
and  obnoxious  leaders  of  that  party. 

How  Mr.  Humphrey's  ride  to  Leicester  prospered  appears 
from  the  result.  The  message  which  he  bore  seems  to  have 
been  enforced  by  some  communication  from  the  patriarchal 
White ;  and  Higginson,  who  had  reason,  perhaps,  to  expect  a 
visit  from  ofiicers  of  the  High  Commission  rather  than  so 
friendly  an  invitation,  "  looked  at  it  as  a  call  from  God,  and 
(as  Peter  looked  at  the  message  from  Cornelius)  a  motion 
which  he  could  not  withstand."^  Other  ministers  were  found 
willing  to  go  over  with  him ;  and  when  the  expedition,  after 

^  Acts  xi.,  17  ;   Hubbard,  p.  112. 


A.D.  1629.]  A    PURITAN    COLONY.  461 

many  delays,  set  forth,  the  official  letter  from  the  Company  to 
Governor  Enclicott  introduced  them  to  him  and  to  the  colony. 
After  announcing  the  confirmation  of  title  to  the  territory, 
and  the  extension  of  power  to  govern  all  its  inhabitants 
which  had  been  obtained  from  his  Majesty  "  under  the  broad 
seal  of  England,"  and  before  touching  upon  any  other  matter, 
the  Company  proceeded  to  instruct  the  governor  of  its  colony 
concerning  those  missionaries  :  "  For  that  the  projoagating 
of  the  Gospel  is  the  thing  we  do  profess  above  all  to  be  our 
aim  in  settling  this  plantation,  we  have  been  careful  to  make 
plentiful  provision  of  godly  ministers;  by  whose  faithful 
preaching,  godly  conversation,  and  exemplary  life  we  trust 
not  only  those  of  our  own  nation  will  be  built  up  in  the 
knowledge  of  God,  but  also  the  Indians  may,  in  God's  ap- 
pointed time,  be  reduced  to  the  obedience  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ.  One  of  them  is  well  known  to  yourself,  namely,  Mr. 
Skelton,  whom  we  have  the  rather  desired  to  bear  a  part  in 
this  work,  for  that  we  are  informed  yourself  have  formerly 
received  much  good  by  his  ministry.  .  .  .  Another  is  Mr.  Hig- 
ginson,  a  grave  man,  and  of  worthy  commendations.  .  .  .  The 
third  is  Mr.  Bright,  sometime  trained  up  under  Mr.  Daven- 
port. .  .  .We  pray  you,  accommodate  them  all  with  neces- 
saries as  well  as  you  may ;  and  in  convenient  time  let  there 
be  houses  built  them,  according  to  the  agreement  we  have 
made  with  them.  We  doubt  not  but  these  gentlemen,  your 
ministers,  will  agree  lovingly  together;  and  for  cherishing 
of  love  betwixt  them,  we  pray  you  carry  yourself  impartial- 
ly to  all.  For  the  manner  of  their  exercising  their  ministry, 
and  teaching  both  our  own  people  and  the  Indians,  we  leave 
that  to  themselves,  hoping  they  will  make  God's  Word  the 
I'ule  of  their  actions,  and  mutually  agree  in  the  discharge  of 
their  duties.  And  because  their  doctrine  will  hardly  be  well 
esteemed  whose  persons  are  not  reverenced,  we  desire  that 
both  by  your  own  example,  and  by  commanding  all  others 
to  do  the  like,  our  ministers  may  receive  due  honor." 

Those  three  gentlemen,  then,  were  to  be  the  established! 


462  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XX. 

clergy  of  the  colony — "  our  ministers,"  as  employed  by  us 
and  responsible  to  us — "  your  ministers,"  as  you  are  to  have 
the  benefit  of  their  ministry.  After  instructing  the  colonial 
governor  on  many  other  subjects,  the  Company  has  more  to 
say  about  its  clergymen,  and  his  duty  as  governor  over  them : 
"  We  have,  in  the  former  part  of  our  letter,  certified  you  of 
the  good  hopes  we  have  of  the  love  and  unanimous  agree- 
ment of  our  ministers,  they  having  declared  themselves  to  us 
to  be  of  one  judgment,  and  to  be  fully  agreed  on  the  manner 
how  to  exercise  their  ministry,  which  we  hope  will  be  by 
them  accordingly  performed.  Yet  because  it  is  often  found 
that  some  busy  persons,  led  more  by  their  will  than  any 
good  warrant  out  of  God's  Word,  take  opportunities  by  need- 
less questions  to  stir  up  strife,  and  by  that  means  to  beget  a 
question  and  bring  men  to  declare  some  difierence  in  judg- 
ment—  most  commonly  in  things  indifferent,  from  which 
small  beginnings  great  mischiefs  have  followed  —  we  pray 
you  and  the  rest  of  the  council,  if  any  such  disputes  shall 
haj^pen  among  you,  that  you  suppress  them,  and  be  careful 
to  maintain  peace  and  unity."  ^ 
V  Religious  uniformity,  then,  was  to  be  maintained  in  the 
Puritan  colony  by  its  governor  and  council,  under  the  au- 
thority of  the  Company.  No  theory  of  religious  liberty 
found  entertainment  in  the  minds  of  those  earnest  and  godly 
men  when  they  planned  their  heroic  enterprise.  In  their 
Utopia  there  was  no  room  for  the  propagation  or  assertion 
of  erroneous  opinions,  even  about  "  things  indifferent."  There- 
fore, in  the  Utopian  commonw^ealth  which  they  were  calling 
into  existence,  "needless  questions  that  stir  up  strife"  were 
not  to  be  permitted ;  and  a  godly  magistracy,  abhorrent 
alike  of  superstition  and  of  schismatic  reformation,  was  to 
judge  as  to  the  needfulness  or  needlessness  of  any  question 
on  which  there  might  be  a  strife  of  opinions.  In  the  planta- 
tion of  the  Massachusetts  Bay,  "such  disputes"  were  to  be 
suppressed ;  and  Governor  Endicott,  with  the  council  which 
the  Company  in  tliis  letter  assigned  to  him,  must  "be  careful 


A.D.  1629.]  A    PURITAN    COLONY.  463 

to  maintain  peace  and  unity."  The  voice  of  one  crying  in 
the  Avilderness  to  proclaim  a  theory  of  "soul- liberty"  —  if 
such  a  voice  should  utter  itself  within  the  Company's  domain 
— must  be  stifled. 

The  letter  gives  yet  another  glimpse  of  the  views  which 
the  Company  held  about  ministers  in  its  colony.  An  unfor- 
tunate Separatist — one  "Mr.  Ralph  Smith,  a  minister" — had 
desired  passage  in  one  of  the  Company's  ships,  hoping,  per- 
haps, to  escape,  by  fleeing  into  New  England,  the  penalties 
from  which  the  Pilgrims  fled  into  Holland,  and  which  the 
laws  of  England  provided  against  such  crimes  as  they  were 
guilty  of  His  desire  "  was  granted  him,"  said  the  Company, 
"before  we  understood  of  his  difference  in  judgment  in  some 
things  from  our  ministers."  What  could  they  do  ?  The  per- 
mission might  have  been  revoked  ;  but,  alas  !  his  goods  were 
already  on  shipboard  before  they  knew  what  he  was.  Such 
being  the  case,  they  were  too  magnanimous  to  refuse  him  a 
passage — perhaps  they  were  also  in  too  much  of  a  hurry. 
Yet  the  governor  must  be  instructed  to  be  on  his  guard 
against  that  anomalous  minister.  "  Forasmuch  as  from 
hence  it  is  feared  there  may  grow  some  distraction  among 
you  if  there  should  be  any  siding  (though  we  have  a  very 
good  opinion  of  his  honesty),  we  shall  not,  we  hope,  offend 
in  charity  to  fear" — and  to  provide  against — "  the  worst  that 
may  grow  from  their  different  judgments."  As  if  they  said. 
We  can  not  but  anticipate  the  conflict  that  may  arise  be- 
tween our  ministers  and  this  interloper  who  disowns  and  de- 
nounces all  national  churches.  "  We  have  therefore  thought 
fit  to  give  you  this  order,  that  unless  he  will  be  conformable 
to  our  government,  you  suffer  him  not  to  remain  within  the 
limits  of  our  grant."  What  they  were  endeavoring  was  to 
open  a  safe  refuge  for  clergy  and  laity  who  could  not  in  con- 
science conform  to  the  ecclesiastical  regulations  in  England ; 
but  the  minister  who  would  dwell  within  the  limits  of  their 
territory  must  "  be  conformable  to  their  government."  No 
doubt,  much  may  be  said  to  justify  their  fears  and  to  excuse 


464  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XX. 

their  precautions ;  but  the  fact  is  nevertheless  important  to 
our  story.  ^ 

At  last,  after  the  many  delays  incident  to  the  fitting  out 
of  such  an  expedition,  three  vessels,  strongly  manned  and 
heavily  armed,  set  sail,  with  one  hundred  and  ninety-two 
passengers,  and  "all  manner  of  munition  and  provision  for 
the  plantation."  2     Among  the  passengers  on  one  of  those 

^  The  letter,  preserved  in  the  archives  of  Massachusetts,  w^as  printed  by  Dr. 
Young  in  his  "  Chron.  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  141-171.  An  earnest  care  for  the 
moral  and  religious  welfare  of  the  colony,  and  especially  of  those  who  were 
employed  in  the  service  of  the  Company,  is  manifest  in  many  passages  besides 
those  relating  to  the  ministers.  The  servants  of  the  Company  were  to  be  dis- 
tributed into  families,  each  with  its  chief,  who  was  to  maintain  "  morning  and 
evening  family  duties,"  and  to  hold  a  watchful  eye  over  his  household, "  that 
disorders  may  be  prevented  and  ill  weeds  nipped  before  they  take  too  great 
a  head."  All  those  servants  must  "  be  kept  to  labor,  as  the  only  means  to 
reduce  them  to  civil,  yea,  a  godly  life,  and  to  keep  youth  from  falling  into 
many  enormities. "  All  inhabitants,  as  well  as  the  Company's  servants,  were 
enjoined  to  "surcease  their  labor  every  Saturday  throughout  the  year  at 
three  of  the  clock  in  the  afternoon,"  and  to  "  spend  the  rest  of  that  day  in 
catechising  and  preparation  for  the  Sabbath,  as  the  ministers  should  direct." 
The  old  Planters,  before  Endicott's  arrival,  had  engaged  in  the  planting  of 
tobacco,  and  were  still  desiring  to  pursue  that  business.  On  that  point  the 
Puritan  feeling  in  London  was  strong.  The  letter  spoke  of  tobacco-planting 
as  "a  trade  by  this  whole  Company  generally  disavowed,  and  utterly  dis- 
claimed by  some  of  the  greatest  Adventurers  among  us,  who  absolutely  de- 
clared themselves  unwilling  to  have  any  hand  in  this  plantation  if  we  intend- 
ed to  cherish  or  permit  the  planting  thereof,  in  any  other  kind  than  for  a 
man's  private  use  for  mere  necessity."  Endicott  and  his  council  were  there- 
fore instructed  that  though  they  might  tolerate  for  a  time  the  planting  of 
that  weed  by  the  old  Planters  (but  by  nobody  else)  under  proper  restrictions, 
they  must  have  "an  especial  care,  with  as  much  conveniency  as  maybe, 
utterly  to  suppress  the  planting  of  it  except  for  mere  necessity."  At  the 
same  time  there  was  a  touch  of  moral  suasion  in  the  statement  that  the  price 
of  tobacco  in  the  London  market  was  not  much  more  than  enough  to  pay  the 
freight  and  duty,  and  that,"  there  being  such  great  quantities  made  in  other 
places,"  there  was  little  hope  of  its  becoming  more  profitable  to  New  En- 
gland producers. 

^  The  three  ships  were  "the  Talbot,  a  good  and  strong  ship  of  300  tons 
and  nineteen  pieces  of  ordnance,  and   served  with  thirty  mariners;"  the 


A.D.  1629.]  A   PURITAN    COLONY.  465 

three  vessels  were  several  iamilies  of  the  Pilgrim  Church, 
who  had  come  from  Leyden,  and  whose  destination  was  to 
Plymouth.  The  three  ministers  employed  by  the  Company 
were  assigned  one  to  each  vessel.  By  their  contract  with 
the  Company,  they  were  under  obligation  "to  do  their  en- 
deavor in  their  places  of  the  ministry,  as  well  in  preaching 
and  catechising,  as  also  in  teaching  or  causing  to  be  taught 
the  Company's  servants  and  their  children,  as  also  the  sav- 
ages and  their  children,  whereby  to  their  uttermost  to  further 
the  main  end  of  this  plantation,"  which  was  declared  to  be, 
"  by  the  assistance  of  Almighty  God,  the  conversion  of  the 
savages."  On  the  other  side,  the  Company  contracted  to  pay 
each  of  the  three  an  outfit  of  twenty  pounds — wherewith  to 
purchase  "apparel  and  other  necessities  for  the  voyage" — 
ten  pounds  for  the  purchase  of  books,  which  should  remain 
for  the  use  of  his  successor,  and  a  salary  of  twenty  pounds 
annually  for  three  years.  In  addition  to  the  little  stipend, 
each  of  them  was  to  have,  for  himself  and  his  family,  "  neces- 
saries of  diet,  housing,  and  firewood,"  as  well  as  transporta- 
tion to  New  England,  and  a  free  passage  homeward  if  at  the 
end  of  three  years  he  should  not  desire  to  remain.  A  par- 
sonage house  was  to  be  built,  "  and  certain  lands  allotted 
thereunto,"  for  each  minister  and  his  successors.  At  the  end 
of  three  years,  each  was  to  receive  a  hundred  acres  of  land 
as  his  own ;  and  at  the  end  of  seven  years,  should  he  remain 
so  long,  another  hundred.  Each  of  them  had  also  an  assur- 
ance that,  if  he  should  die  in  New  England,  the  Company 
would  provide  for  his  wife  and  children  during  her  widow- 
hood and  the  continuance  of  her  abode  in  their  colony.  Hig- 
ginson,  in  consideration  of  his  eight   children,  was  to  have 

George,  of  the  same  tonnage  and  an  equal  number  of  seamen,  with  an  arma- 
ment of  twenty  guns  :  and  the  Lions  Whelp  (or  Lion),  "a  neat  and  nimble 
ship  "  of  only  120  tons,  but  carrying  eight  guns  and  "many  mariners."  En- 
gland being  then  at  war  with  Spain,  merchants'  vessels  were  necessarily  armed 
vessels.  The  thirty-five  Plymouth  people  seem  to  have  been  passengers  in 
the  Lion,  which  was  commanded  by  their  tried  fiiend  William  Pierce. 


460  GENESIS    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XX. 

thirty  pounds  instead  of  twenty  for  his  outfit,  and  an  addi- 
tion often  pounds  annually  to  his  stipend.^ 

The  incidents  of  the  Talhots  voyage  were  carefully  re- 
corded by  Higginson,  who  was  assigned  to  that  vessel,  as 
Skelton  was  to  the  George^  and  Bright  to  the  Lion.  On  a 
Saturday  (April  25=May  5,  1629),  she  dropped  down  the 
Thames  from  Gravesend  with  only  a  faint  breeze;  and  near 
the  mouth  of  the  river  they  rested  that  night,  and  "  kept 
Sabbath  the  next  day."  At  the  end  of  another  week,  the 
ship,  after  sundry  adversities,  and  "with  much  tacking  and 
turning,"  had  not  yet  entered  the  Strait  of  Dover,  but  had 
been  lying  three  days  where  a  strong  southwest  wind,  "  caus- 
ing her  to  dance,"  gave  her  passengers  their  first  experience 
of  sea-sickness,  and  there  her  passengers  again  "  kept  Sab- 
bath "  (May  3  =  13).  The  progress  of  two  days  more  brought 
her  "over  against  Yarmouth  about  eight  of  the  clock  at 
night."  At  that  port  some  final  arrangements  were  to  be 
made  for  the  long  voyage,  and  the  passengers  had  the  op- 
portunity of  going  ashore.  Saturday  saw  them  again  on 
shipboard,  and  there,  on  the  next  day,  they  kept  their  third 
Sabbath,  under  the  ministration  of  Higginson.  He,  aftei- 
the  morning  service  with  his  fellow-passengers,  went  ashore 
by  invitation  to  preach  at  Yarmouth,  where  Captain  Bur- 
leigh— "  Captain  of  Yarmouth  Castle,  a  grave,  comely  gentle- 
man, and  of  great  age,"  who  had  been  a  sea-captain  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  time,  and  had  been  "prisoner  in  Spain  three 
years  "2 — expressed,  w^ith  hospitable  kindness,  his  interest  in 
the  voyage,  and  "  earnestly  desired  to  be  certified  of  theii 

'  Young,  "  Chron.  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  207-212. 

^  He  was  thus  described  by  Winthrop,  i.,  4,  who  adds  the  information  that, 
twenty  years  before,  that  old  man  and  three  of  his  sons  were  captains  in  at 
expedition  sent  by  Prince  Henry  (then  Prince  of  Wales)  to  explore  the  coas\ 
of  Guiana.  Men  who  had  fought  the  Spaniards  in  the  time  of  Queen  Bess, 
and  whose  notions  of  the  diiference  between  Romanism  and  Protestantism 
had  been  made  more  definite  by  an  experience  of  captivity  in  Spain,  were 
likely  to  share  in  the  antipathies  and  aspirations  of  the  Puritans. 


A.D.  1629.]  A   PURITAN    COLONY.  467 

safe  arrival  in  'New  England,  and  of  the  state  of  the  coun- 
try." On  Monday,  "the  Zion  having  taken  in  all  her  pro- 
vision for  passengers,"  they^  sailed  with  a  favoring  wind  ; 
but  it  was  not  till  two  days  later  that  the  record  could  be 
made,  "We  left  our  dear  native  soil  of  England  (May  13=r 
23)  behind  us,  .  .  .  and  launched  the  same  day  a  great  way 
into  the  main  ocean." 

One  author  tells  us  :  "When  they  came  to  the  Land's  End, 
Mr.  Higginson,  calling  up  his  children  and  other  passengers 
unto  the  stern  of  the  ship  to  take  their  last  sight  of  England, 
said,  '  We  will  not  say,  as  the  Separatists  were  wont  to  say 
at  their  leaving  of  England,  Farewell,  Babylon !  farewell, 
Rome  !  but  we  will  say.  Farewell,  dear  England,  farewell  the 
church  of  God  in  England  and  all  the  Christian  friends  there. 
We  do  not  go  to  New  England  as  Separatists  from  the  Church 
of  England,  though  we  can  not  but  separate  from  the  cor- 
ruptions in  it ;  but  we  go  to  practice  the  positive  part  of 
church  reformation,  and  propagate  the  Gospel  in  America.' " 
We  may  not  affirm,  without  better  authority,  that  there  was 
just  that  scene  enacted  on  the  deck  of  the  Talbot;  but  we 
know  that  the  words  thus  ascribed  to  Hifygjinson  misjht  have 
been  spoken  by  him,  then  and  there,  with  perfect  sincerity. 
The  Separatist  minister,  Ralph  Smith,  was  among  the  pas- 
sengers, and  for  that  reason  those  words  were  more  likely  to 
be  spoken.  They  express  the  spirit  and  intention  both  of 
the  corporation  which  was  planting  the  colony  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay,  and  of  the  nonconforming  ministers  whom  it  was 
sending  forth  to  make  that  a  Christian  and  a  Puritan  colony. 
Those  ministers,  and  the  Company  that  employed  them,  were 
not  Ritualists — they  had  small  reverence  for  any  imposed 
forms  of  prayer;  they  were  not  Episcopalians;  but  they 
were  loyal  to  "the  church  of  God  in  England"  as  a  Nation- 

^  The  Talbot,  commanded  by  Master  Beecher,  and  the  Lion,  commanded 
by  Master  William  Pierce,  sailed  together.  .  .  .  The  George  had  been  dis 
patched  some  ten  days  earlier,  "  having  some  special  and  urgent  cause  of 
hastening  her  passage." 


468  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUECHES.        [CH.  XX. 

al  Church.  They  were  going  to  plant  the  church  of  God  in 
another  country  where  they  could  "  practice  the  positive  part 
of  church  reformation"  without  making  a  schism,  where  the 
Act  of  ITniformity  would  have  no  force,  and  where  bishops 
and  High  Commission  could  not  oppress  them. 

Their  first  Lord's  day  at  sea  was  four  weeks  after  their  em- 
barkation. On  that  day  (May  17=:  2 7)  it  was  discovered  that 
two  of  Higginson's  children  were  ill  with  small-pox,  that  ter- 
rible contagion  having  been  "brought  into  the  ship  by  one 
Mr.  Browne,"  who  had  the  disease  when  he  embarked  with  the 
rest  at  Gravesend.  One  of  the  two  children,  Mary,  about  five 
years  of  age,  died  the  next  Tuesday ;  the  other,  Samuel,  at 
last  recovered.  Afllicted  by  sickness  and  death,  and  at  the 
same  time  encountering  adverse  wdnds,  the  passengers  agreed 
to  ''keep  a  solemn  day  of  fasting  and  prayer."  In  the  serv- 
ices of  that  day.  Smith,  the  Separatist  minister,  was  permit- 
ted to  assist.  Higginson's  record  of  that  day  is  character- 
istic not  only  of  himself  bat  of  his  fellow-voyagers.  "There 
being  two  ministers  in  the  ship,  Mr.  Smith  and  myself,  we 
endeavored,  together  with  others,  to  consecrate  the  day,  as 
a  solemn  fasting  and  humiliation  to  Almighty  God,  as  a 
furtherance  of  our  present  work.  And  it  pleased  God  the 
ship  w^as  becalmed  all  day,  so  that  we  were  freed  from  any 
encumbrance.  And  as  soon  as  we  had  done  prayers  (behold 
the  goodness  of  God  !),  about  seven  o'clock  at  night,  the  wind 
turned  to  northeast,  and  we  had  a  fair  gale  that  night  as  a 
manifest  evidence  of  the  Lord's  hearing  our  prayers.  I  heard 
some  of  the  mariners  say  they  thought  this  was  the  first  sea- 
fast  that  ever  was  kept."  Another  fast-day  they  had  before 
the  voyage  ended.  While  keeping  their  six  Sabbaths  on 
the  Atlantic,  they  found  the  Sunday  weather,  in  almost  every 
instance,  favorable  to  their  religious  services — as  if  the  sea 
itself,  and  the  winds,  were  resting  with  them.  Their  sev- 
enth Sabbath  was  in  the  harbor  of  Cape  Ann.  The  next  day 
(June  29  — July  9,  1629),  they  were  piloted  through  "the  cu- 
rious and  difiicult  entrance  into  the  spacious  harbor  of  Naum- 


A.D.  1629.]  A   PURITAN    COLONY.  469 

keag,"  wondering,  as  they  passed  along,  "  to  behold  so  many 
islands  replenished  with  thick  wood  and  high  trees,  and 
many  fair  green  pastures."  The  George  was  already  there, 
having  arrived  seven  days  earlier. 

At  the  end  of  the  journal,  Higginson  recorded,  with  thank- 
ful mind,  a  summary  of  "  divers  things "  which,  in  his  re- 
view of  the  voyage,  seemed  to  demand  a  devout  acknowl- 
edgment of  God's  providence  over  him  and  his  companions : 

"  First,  through  God's  blessing,  our  passage  was  short  and 
speedy ;  for  whereas  we  had  a  thousand  leagues ...  to  sail  from 
Old  to  New  England,  w^e  performed  the  same  in  six  weeks 
and  three  days  "  from  Yarmouth  to  Naumkeag.  "  Secondly, 
our  passage  was  comfortable  and  easy  for  the  most  part, 
having  ordinarily  fair  and  moderate  wind."  ..."  Thirdly, 
our  passage  was  also  healthful  to  our  passengers,"  for,  not- 
withstanding the  small-pox,  and  though  "w^e  were,  in  all 
reason,  in  wonderful  danger  all  the  way,  our  ship  being 
greatly  crowded  wath  passengers,"  there  were  only  three 
deaths  on  the  voyage. 

"  Fourthly,  our  passage  was  both  pleasant  and  profitable. 
For  we  received  instruction  and  delight  in  beholding  the 
wonders  of  the  Lord  in  the  deep  w^aters — sometimes  seeing 
the  sea  around  us  appearing  with  a  terrible  countenance,  and, 
as  it  were,  full  of  high  hills  and  deep  valleys,  and  sometimes 
it  appeared  as  a  plain  and  even  meadow.  And  ever  and 
anon  we  saw  divers  kinds  of  fishes  sporting  in  the  great 
waters,  great  grampuses  and  huge  whales,  going  by  compan- 
ies and  spouting  up  water  streams.  Those  that  love  their 
own  chimney-corner,  and  dare  not  go  beyond  their  own 
town's  end,  shall  never  have  the  honor  to  see  these  wonder- 
ful w^orks  of  Almighty  God. 

"Fifthly,  we  had  a  pious  and  Christian-like  passage;  for  I 
suppose  passengers  shall  seldom  find  a  company  of  more  re. 
ligious,  honest,  and  kind  seamen  than  we  had.  We  constant- 
ly served  God  morning  and  evening  by  reading  and  expound- 
ing a  chapter,  singing,  and  prayer;  and  the  Sabbath   was 


470  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.        [CH.  XX. 

solemnly  kept,  by  adding  to  the  former,  preaching  twice  and 
catechising.  And  in  our  great  need  we  kept  two  solemn 
fasts,  and  found  a  gracious  effect.  Let  all  that  love  and  use 
fasting  and  praying  take  notice  that  it  is  as  prevailable  by 
sea  as  by  land,  wheresoever  it  is  faithfully  performed.  Be- 
sides, the  shipmaster  and  his  company  used  every  night  to 
set  their  eight  and  twelve  o'clock  watches  with  singing  and 
a  psalm,  and  prayer  that  was  not  read  out  of  a  book." 

It  was  for  the  privilege  of  such  prayer — "  prayer  not  read 
out  of  a  book  " — that  Puritans  were  crossing  the  iVtlantic. 
When  out  of  England,  whether  on  the  ocean  or  in  the  wil- 
derness, they  felt  themselves  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
laws  and  the  hierarchy  that  were  oppressing  the  Church  of 
England.  The  "plentiful  provision  of  godly  ministers"  con- 
signed to  Governor  Endicott  w^as  distributed — Skelton  and 
Higginson  to  care  for  the  moral  and  spiritual  welfare  of  the 
settlement  at  N^aumkeag,  and  Bright  to  another  plantation 
which  was  to  be  immediately  begun. 

The  superfluous  and  undesired  Ralph  Smith,  regarded  as 
dangerous  to  the  Puritan  colony  because  of  his  Separatism, 
had  been  required  to  promise,  "under  his  hand,  that  he  w^ould 
not  exercise  his  ministry  within  the  limits  of  the  patent  with- 
out the  express  leave  of  the  governor  on  the  spot."  ^  Whether 
he  obtained  from  Endicott  a  license  to  preach  is  not  known, 
but,  with  or  without  such  license,  he  went  to  Nantasket, 
where  Oldham  had  his  trading  station,  and  where  a  few  other 
"straggling  people"  lived,  who  were  perhaps  thought  to  be 
in  no  great  danger  of  being  perverted  from  right  ways  by 
his  preaching.  He  found  there  no  considerable  opening  for 
the  exercise  of  his  ministry ;  but,  being  there,  he  was  soon 
found  by  some  of  the  Plymouth  people  whose  business  had 
brought  them  thither  in  a  boat,  and  who  were  not  afraid  of 
him.  He  could  not  but  be  glad  to  become  acquainted  with 
men  who  knew,  in  their  own  experience,  what  it  was  to  bear 

'  Hutchinson,  i.,  10. 


A.D.  1629.]       WHAT    CAME    OF    THE    PURITAN    COLONY.  4Vl 

the  reproach  and  suspicions  that  rested  on  him.  "  Weary  of 
being  in  that  uncouth  place,  and  in  a  poor  house  that  wouUl 
neither  keep  him  nor  his  goods  dry,"  he  begged  of  them  a 
passage  to  Plymouth.  "They  had  no  order  for  any  such 
thing ;"  and  they  might  have  remembered  how  Allerton  was 
blamed  for  bringing  poor  Rogers  over  from  England.  But 
"seeing  him  to  be  a  grave  man,  and  understanding  that  he 
had  been  a  minister,"  they  "presumed  and  brought  him," 
and  with  him  "such  things  as  they  could  well  carry"  of  his 
goods.  At  Plymouth  "  he  was  kindly  entertained  and  housed," 
and  "  the  rest  of  his  goods  and  servants  were  sent  for."  Im- 
mediately he  became  a  helper  to  Brewster,  preaching  in  the 
exercise  of  prophesying.  When  the  church  had  become  ac- 
quainted with  his  character  and  his  gifts,  and  he  had  become 
a  member  of  their  brotherhood,  he  was  "  chosen  into  the 
ministry."  Thus,  at  last,  the  Pilgrim  Church  had  its  pastor — 
the  humble  yet  not  unworthy  successor  of  its  lamented  Rob- 
inson. He  was  not  distinguished  by  eminent  gifts;  he  was 
not  regarded  as  equal  to  his  colleague  Brewster,  either  in 
wisdom  "for  government  or  in  discourse  for  edification ;  but 
he  continued  in  office  five  or  six  years,  and  then  resigned  it, 
"partly  by  his  own  willingness,  as  thinking  it  too  heavy  a 
burden,  and  partly  by  the  persuasion  of  others." 

While  Smith,  under  the  reproach  of  Separatism,  was  find- 
ing his  way  to  the  Separatist  colony,  Skelton  and  Higginson, 
as  Puritans,  were  beginning  to  "  practice  the  positive  part  of 
church  reformation"  at  Salem.  Having  no  occasion  to  in- 
quire how  the  endowments  which  the  National  Church  in 
their  native  country  had  inherited  from  the  ages  before  the 
Reformation  were  to  be  preserved  and  made  available  for  the 
evangelization  of  the  whole  people,  they  arrived,  before  they 
were  aware,  atnewconclusions.  Governor  Endicott,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  entered  upon  a  fraternal  correspondence  with 
the  Governor  of  Plymouth,  and,  in  his  Christian  intercourse 
with  Deacon  Fuller,  he  had  learned  that  the  Plymouth  Sep- 
aratists were  not  so  far  out  of  the  right  way  as  he  had  once 


472  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [CH.  XX. 

thought.  Probably  the  studies  of  the  two  clergymen  were 
aided  by  conference  with  the  governor,  and  with  other  intel- 
ligent and  earnest  men  among  the  planters.  The  result  was 
a  conviction  on  their  part  that  their  appointment  by  the 
Company  in  London,  though  it  might  give  them  authority  as 
chaplains  to  the  Company's  servants,  did  not  place  them  in 
exactly  right  relations  to  the  church  of  God  in  Salem,  and 
that  something  must  be  done  to  supply  that  defect. 

Accordingly  it  was  concluded  that  the  ministers  must  be 
elected  and  introduced  into  office  by  the  Christian  people 
among  whom  they  were  to  be  overseers.  The  positive  part 
of  church  reformation  was  to  begin  at  that  point.  In  strict 
conformity  with  Puritan  ideas,  the  governor  took  the  lead. 
"It  pleased  God,"  says  a  contemporaneous  letter,  "to  move  the 
heart  of  our  governor  to  set  apart  a  solemn  day  of  humilia- 
tion for  the  choice  of  a  pastor  and  teacher;"  and  that  was  a 
great  day  in  Salem — no  buying  and  selling,  no  servile  labor 
nor  vain  recreation,  was  permitted  on  that  day.  "  The  former 
part  of  the  day  being  spent  in  prayer  and  teaching,"  the  aft- 
ernoon was  given  to  the  solemnities  of  the  election.  In  the 
letter  just  mentioned,  the  whole  transaction  is  described. 
"The  persons  thought  on" — Skelton  and  Higginson — "who 
had  been  ministers  in  England,"  and  who  had  been  in  some 
way  named  as  candidates,  were  requested  to  give  their  views 
concerning  the  way  in  which  God  calls  men  to  an  official 
ministry  of  the  Word.  "They  acknowledged  there  was  a 
twofold  calling:  the  one  an  inward  calling,  when  the  Lord 
moved  the  heart  of  a  man  to  take  that  calling  upon  him  and 
fitted  him  with  gifts  for  the  same;  the  second  (the  out- 
ward calling)  was  from  the  people,  when  a  company  of  be- 
lievers are  joined  together  in  covenant  to  walk  together  in 
all  the  ways  of  God."  The  people,  thus  convened  by  their 
governor,  knew  that  the  two  men  before  them  had  the  quali- 
fications prescribed  by  the  apostle  Paul  as  necessary  to  a 
bishop.'     They  approved  the  answers  which  had  shown  that 


1  Tim.  iii,.  1-7. 


A.D.  1629.]       WHAT    CAME    OF    THE    PUEITAIST    COLONY.  473 

those  two  men  expected  to  derive  their  right  as  official  mirf- 
isters  of  Christ  in  the  church,  not  from  a  prelatical  or  hie- 
rarchical vocation,  but  only  from  an  inward  call  from  God's 
Spirit  together  with  an  outward  call  from  the  church  itself 
So  they  were  ready  to  give  their  voices  in  the  election  of 
their  pastor  and  teacher. 

*' Their  choice  was  after  this  manner:  Every  fit  member 
wrote,  in  a  note,  his  name  whom  the  Lord  moved  him  to 
think  was  fit  for  a  pastor,  and  so,  likewise,  whom  they  would 
have  for  teacher."  When  the  votes  were  counted,  it  appear- 
ed (what  was  doubtless  arranged  and  understood  beforehand) 
that  the  majority  of  voices  "  was  for  Mr.  Skelton  to  be  pastor, 
and  Mr.  HiofOfinson  to  be  teacher."  But  a  mere  declaration 
of  the  choice  was  not  regarded  as  introducing  the  chosen 
into  their  offices.  An  apostolic  ordination  must  follow,  for 
it  was  not  to  be  admitted  that  the  "holy  orders"  which 
these  men  had  received  in  the  National  Church  of  Old  En- 
gland could  invest  them  with  any  ecclesiastical  power  or  of- 
fice in  free  New  England.  Not  much  of  ritual  pomp  was 
there  in  the  ordination  of  the  chosen  pastor  and  teacher. 
"  They  accepting  the  choice,  Mr.  Higginson,  and  three  or  four 
more  of  the  gravest  members  of  the  church,  laid  their  hands 
on  Mr.  Skelton,  using  prayers  therewith.  This  being  done, 
then  there  was  imposition  of  hands  on  Mr.  Higginson " 
in  like  manner.  Such  was  the  first  New  England  ordina- 
tion.^ 

A  first  step  had  been  taken  in  the  positive  part  of  church 
reformation.  It  seems  a  long  stride,  but  we  must  not  regard 
it  as  an  intentional  or  conscious  departure  from  the  Puritan 
theory.  The  right  of  the  godly  people  in  every  parish  to 
choose  their  own  minister — especially  if  it  be  done  under  the 
supervision  of  a  godly  magistracy — might  well  be  recognized 


^  Letter  from  Charles  Gott  to  Governor  Bradford,  dated  "Salem.  July 80, 
anno  1020,"  in  Bradford's  "Letter-Book"  ^Mass.  Historical  Colle-jtions,  iii., 
67,  68). 


474  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHURCHES.       [CH.  XX. 

and  established  in  founding  a  Puritan  commonwealth,  for  it 
was  one  of  those  rights  which  hierarchical  usiM-pation  had 
taken  away,  and  which  the  unfinished  English  Reformation 
had  not  restored.  It  was  evident,  also,  to  many  a  Puritan 
mind,  that  ordination  ouglit  to  follow,  and  not  precede,  that 
outward  calling  by  the  people  which  was  to  recognize  the 
inward  calling  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  The  Salem  Puritans, 
then,  in  formally  electing  their  own  ministers,  and  in  their 
solemn  ordination  of  the  ministers  whom  they  had  chosen, 
were  not  conscious  of  separating  themselves  from  the  Puri- 
tan party  in  the  church  of  their  native  country.  They  were 
only  doing  what  the  principle  of  thorough  church  reformation 
seemed  to  require  of  them  in  their  circumstances.  But  their 
ecclesiastical  organization  was  not  completed  by  what  they 
had  done  in  that  assembly.  An  election  of  elders  and  dea- 
cons was  proposed,  and  candidates  were  named ;  but,  on  a  sug- 
gestion then  made,  it  was  judged  best  to  wait  for  the  arrival 
of  another  company  from  England,  and  so  that  day's  trans- 
actions were  ended. 

On  further  consideration,  it  seems  to  have  been  thought 
that  the  proposed  delay  was,  for  some  reason,  inexpedient ; 
and  soon  "  another  day  of  humiliation  "  was  appointed  for 
the  election  of  elders  and  deacons.  But,  in  the  mean  time, 
such  questions  as  whether  there  were  a  church  in  Salem — 
and,  if  so,  who  its  members  were,  and  how^  they  were  to  be 
distinguished  and  identified — must  be  disposed  of.  Were 
all  the  nominally  Christian  people — the  christened  people — 
who  dwelt  in  Salem,  the  church  of  Salem?  If  only  the  god- 
ly were  the  church,  and  were  to  participate  in  church  aftairs, 
who  was  to  divide  between  the  godly  and  the  worldly;  and 
how  were  the  ungodly  to  be  hindered  from  taking  every  thing 
into  their  own  hands  ?  The  necessity  of  constituting  a  church, 
more  distinctly  and  formally  than  had  yet  been  done,  be- 
came apparent.  Neither  the  ministers  nor  the  governor  "had 
as  yet  waded  so  fiir  into  the  controversy  of  church  discipline 
as  to  be  very  positive  in  any  of  those  points"  on  which  the 


A.D.  1629.]       WHAT    CAME    OF   THE    PURITAN    COLONY.  475 

dispute  between  Puritans  and  Separatists  turned.  Yet,  tak- 
ing such  hints  as  they  found  in  the  New  Testament,  they 
deemed  it  "  necessary  for  those  who  intended  to  be  of  the 
church  solemnly  to  enter  into  a  covenant  engagement  one 
with  another,  in  the  presence  of  God,  to  walk  together  before 
him  according  to  his  Word."  Of  course  they  were  not  igno- 
rant that  Separatists  in  England  formed  their  schismatic 
churches  in  that  way — but  what  then  ?  They  were  not  in 
England,  but  in  the  promised  land  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 
and  were  already  separated  from  the  National  Church  of 
heir  native  country,  not  by  schism,  but  by  a  thousand  leagues 
of  ocean;  and  in  what  other  way  could  the  Church  of 
Christ  in  Salem  come  into  a  definite  form  and  organization  ? 
After  they  had  come  to  such  a  conclusion  concerning  the 
church,  another  conclusion  was  inevitable,  namely,  that,  in 
the  right  order,  the  church  must  be  constituted  before  and 
not  after  the  election  and  ordination  of  its  officers. 

In  accordance  with  these  conclusions,  Higginson,  at  the 
desire  of  others,  drew^  up  a  form  in  which  the  thirty  persons 
selected  to  be  the  first  members  of  a  church  might  with  one 
voice  make  profession  of  their  faith  and  engage  to  Avalk  to- 
gether in  obedience  to  Christ.  Thirty  copies  of  the  form 
were  written  out,  that  each  of  the  thirty  whose  faith  and 
mutual  covenant  were  to  be  publicly  expressed  might  con- 
sider it  well.  Then,  on  the  appointed  day  of  humiliation, 
they,  in  those  w^ords,  declared  to  each  other  and  before  all 
their  Christian  faith  and  hope,  and  their  engagements  to  each 
other  and  to  Christ  as  members  of  one  church ;  and  there- 
upon the  pastor  and  the  teacher  were,  by  the  constituted 
church,  called  and  "ordained  to  their  several  offices"  as 
before.  The  former  ordination  had  made  them  the  ministers 
of  a  parish;  this  made  them  the  presbyter-bishops  of  a  New 
Testament  church.^ 


'  The  account  of  that  second  ordination  is  given  both  bv  Hnl)bard  (p.  1 1 8, 
10)  and  by  Morton.     It  is  difficult  to  think  that  either  of  them  could  have 

II 


476  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CIIUKCHES.       [cil.  XX. 

It  had  been  arranged  that  tlie  transactions  of  that  day- 
should  be  consummated  by  a  formal  recognition  of  fraternity 
and  mutual  confidence  between  the  church  that  was  coming 
into  form  and  organization  in  the  Puritan  colony  and  the 
Separatist  church  at  Plymouth.  Among  the  leading  mem- 
bers of  the  Massachusetts  corporation  in  London,  were  some 
wlio  had  withdrawn  their  patronage  from  the  old  colony  lest 
"they  should  sin  against  God  in  building  up  such  a  people" 
stained  with  the  guilt  of  renouncing  all  national  churches; 
and  they  had  undertaken  to  have  a  colony  in  which  there 
should  be  no  place  for  Separatism.  But  no  sooner  was  their 
plantation  begun  than  the  leading  men  among  their  Planters 
learned  to  honor  the  saintly  and  heroic  qualities,  and  all  that 
was  essential  in  the  church  polity^  of  those  Pilgrim  pioneers 
who  had  borne  so  long  the  odious  name  of  Brownists.  A 
delegation  from  Plymouth  was  expected  that  day  at  Salem. 
Adverse  winds  hindered  the  voyage  of  the  delegates  across 
the  great  bay ;  and  the  business  of  the  day  went  forward 
without  "their  direction  and  assistance,"  which  had  been 
desired  because  Plymouth  was  supposed  to  have  the  wisdom 
of  experience  in  the  conduct  of  a  self-governed  church.  But 
later  in  the  day,  before  the  solemnities  of  ordination  were 
concluded,  the  "messengers  of  Plymouth  church,"  Governor 
Bradford  himself  being  one  of  .them,  "came  into  the  assem- 

been  mistaken.  After  the  sacerdotal  idea  (that  ordination  is  almost  a  sacra- 
ment, and,  like  baptism,  must  not  be  repeated)  had  begun  to  be  entertained 
in  New  England,  the  double  ordination  in  Salem  became  a  stumbling-block 
to  some  historians.  Cotton  Mather  is  silent  about  it.  Prince  (p.  262,  263) 
is  perplexed  over  it.  Felt  (i.,  113-116)  shares  in  the  perplexity.  The 
fact  is  that  Higginson,  Skelton,  and  all  the  first  fathers  of  the  New  England 
churches,  repudiated  the  sacerdotal  idea  entirel}'.  Thev  acknowledged  no 
ordination  at  large.  They  admitted  no  such  distinction  as  is  now  made  be- 
tween ordination  and  installation.  If  a  man  had  been  ordained  by  bishops 
in  England,  that  was,  to  them,  no  reason  why  he  should  not  be  ordained 
again  and  again,  with  imposition  of  hands,  so  often  as  he  was  to  be  inducted 
into  office  in  any  church.  They  were  right,  unless  sacerdotalism  is  the  righ: 
tlieory  of  Christianity. 


A.D.  1629.]       WHAT    CAME    OF    THE    PURITAN    COLONY.  477 

bly."  They  saw  what  was  going  on,  they  heard  the  state- 
ment of  what  had  been  done — the  mutual  and  public  profes- 
sion, the  holy  covenant,  the  free  election  by  the  church  of  its 
own  officers ;  and  then,  in  behalf  of  their  own  church,  they 
declared  "their  approbation  and  concurrence."  By  them 
that  elder  church,  cradled  at  Scrooby,  nurtured  and  schooled 
at  Leyden,  and  now  at  last  victorious  over  the  sufferings  and 
temptations  of  the  wilderness,  greeted  its  younger  sister,  in 
apostolic  fashion,  with  "  the  right  hands  of  fellowship."  The 
church  that  had  been  brought  over  the  ocean  now  saw  an- 
other church,  the  first-born  in  America,  holding  the  same 
faith  in  the  same  simplicity  of  self-government  under  Christ 
alone.  It  had  become  manifest  that,  in  the  freedom  of  this 
great  wilderness,  there  was  no  reason  why  the  Separatist 
should  separate  from  the  Puritan,  nor  why  the  Puritan,  who 
came  "  to  practice  the  positive  part  of  church  reformation," 
should  purge  himself  from  Separatism.  The  first  church 
formed  in  America  was  formed  by  a  voluntary  separation 
from  the  world  and  a  voluntary  gathering  into  Christian  fel- 
lowship. Its  charter  was  the  New  Testament,  and  from  that 
charter  it  deduced  its  right  to  exist  and  to  govern  itself  by 
officers  of  its  own  choice  and  ordination.  It  acknowledged 
no  king  in  Christ's  kingdom  save  Christ  himself,  and  no  priest 
in  the  spiritual  temple  save  the  one  High-Priest  within  the 
veil.  Robinson  had  not  lived  to  see  that  day;  but  he  had 
foreseen  it,  and  his  prophecy  Avas  fulfilled.^ 

Such  was  the  beginning  of  a  distinctively  American  church 
history.  If  we  trace  its  progress,  we  shall  find  that  it  is  es- 
sentially the  history  of  voluntary  churches — the  history  of 
tendencies  and  conflicts  which  have  come  to  the  result  that 
now  every  American  church  forms  itself  by  elective  affinity, 
the  principle  of  separation.     We  shall  find  that  it  is  the  his- 


*  "  For,  said  he,  there  Avill  be  no  difference  between  the  conformable  min- 
isters and  jou,  when  they  come  to  the  practice  of  the  ordinances  out  of  the 
kingdom"  of  England. — Winslow,  in  Young,  p.  398. 


478  GENESIS    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    CHUKCHES.       [cH.  XX. 

tory  of  Christianity  working  toward  its  own  emancipation 
from  secular  power;  and  that  it  is  at  the  same  time  the  his- 
tory of  the  state  learning  slowly,  but  at  last  effectually,  that 
it  has  no  jurisdiction  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  and  that  its 
equal  duty  to  all  churches  is  the  duty,  not  of  enforcing  their 
censures,  but  only  of  protecting  their  peaceable  worship  and 
their  liberty  of  prophesying. 


INDEX 


A. 

Abbott,  Archbishop,  26T,  29G. 

A  higail,  the,  454. 

Act  of  Uniformity.     See  Uniformity. 

to  Ketaiu  the  Queen's  Subjects  in 

Obedience,  191, 194,  210. 
Admiral  of  New  England,  391. 
Adventurers.     See  Merchant  Adventurers. 
Ainsworth,  Henry,  150,  191,  220,  225,  22G, 

231,  235,  236,  238,  240,  297,  298,  359. 
Allerton,  Isaac,  258,  333,  335,  339,  35T,  359, 

424,  43T,  439,  440,  441. 
Allotment,  320,  388,  439. 
Ames,  William,  295,  296. 
Amsterdam,  214,  221.     Separatist  Church 

at,  191,  217-226,  236. 
Amsterdam  Trading  Company's  offer  to 

the  Pilgrims,  276. 
Anabaptists,  1U7, 122, 142, 160,  221,  224,  266. 
Anne,  the,  384,  3SG,  387,  393,  394,  405. 
Antioch,  church  at,  23,  25,  26,  40. 
Ap-Henry.     See  Penry. 
Apostles,  their  ecclesiastical  polity,  17-33. 
Archdeacon's  Court,  77. 
Arminian  controversy,  241,  242. 
Arnold,  Benedict,  89. 

Articles  of  agreement  between  the  Pil- 
grims and  the  Adventurers,  277,  280,  282, 

283,  286. 
Assistants  to  governors,  288,  339,  404. 
Austerfield,  202. 
Aylmer,  Bishop,  96, 98, 99, 103, 104, 120, 145. 

B. 

Bacon,  Lord,  92,  246. 

Balch,  John,  451. 

Bancroft,  Archbishop,  201,  263,  269,  296. 

,  George,  265. 

Baptist  churches,  vii.,  224. 

Barnstable,  347. 

Barrowe,  Henry,  91-105,  110-121,  127,  147, 

148-154, 193. 
Barrowists,  93,  263,  408. 
Bartlett,  W.  H.,  202. 
Beaver,  329,  354,  379,  431. 
Beecher,  Thomas,  467. 


Beer,  259,  312,  319,  325,  328. 

Bernard,  Richard,  244,  403. 

Bible,  Tyndale's  translation,  62.  Geneva 
translation,  275. 

Billiugton,  John,  336,  337,  347,  413. 

Bishops,  in  the  first  century,  34,  38.  Dis- 
tinguished from  elders,  38.  Election  of, 
45.    Regarded  as  civil  officers,  266. 

Block  Island,  420. 

Blossom,  Thomas,  434. 

Boston,  in  England,  210,  211. 

,  in  Massachusetts,  348,  359,  367,  376, 

419. 

Bowman,  Christopher,  135. 

Boys,  Edward,  142. 

Bradford,  Alice,  384,  385. 

,  Dorothy,  324. 

,  William,  viii.,  92,  130,  197,  207,  216, 

218,  220,  229,  230,  234,  241,  242,  258,  314, 
317,  320,  321,  324,  329,  333,  334,  337,  339, 
352,  357,  359,  362,  364,  365,  368,  369,  370, 
371,  372,  378,  379,  381,  382,  384,  385,  386, 
394,  399,  415,  416,  419,  424,  430,  433,  440, 
443,  44S,  449,  476. 

Brewer,  Thomas,  230,  271,  281,  302. 

Brewster,  William,  194-196,  201,  204,  207, 
210,  211,  229,  230,  231,  234,  235,  238,  254, 
255,  258,  263,  267,  2GS,  271-273,  275,  2T6, 
298-302,  324,  333,  339,  365,  384,  399,  404, 
407,  416,  424,  445,  471. 

Bright,  Francis,  461,  470. 

Brook,  Benjamin,  109. 

Browne,  Robert,  80-85,  88-90, 166. 

Brownists  and  Brownism,  91, 150, 194,  226, 
244, 263,  304,  398, 408,  421 ,  422, 423, 425, 476. 

Buckhurst,  Lord,  98,  99, 100,  102. 

!  Burial  Hill,  318,  319, 320,  364. 

I  Burleigh,  Captain,  466. 

,''Lord,  98-101,  105,  120,  122,  137,  146, 

153,  181, 187, 188. 

Bury  St.  Edmunds,  79. 

!  c. 

I  Calvin  and  Calvinism,51, 53,237,241,267,303. 
Canon  law,  .38,  44,  45,  76, 198. 
,  Canouicus,  357,  358. 


480 


INDEX. 


Cambridge,  15G. 

Cape  Anu,  420,  422,  433,  43T,  447-452,  46S. 

Cod,  30S,  313-317,  31S,  324,  343,  347, 

420. 
Carleton,  Sir  Dudley,  271,  272. 
Carpenter,  Alice,  384. 
Oarlwright,  Thomas,  70,  71,  74, 134,  2G6. 
Carver,  John,  232,  235,  258,  262,  263,  270, 

280,  286,  293,  310,  320,  332-334,  336,  338, 

339,  350,  352,  354. 

,  Katherine,  339. 

Cattle  introduced  into  New  England,  3D3, 

396. 
Cedar,  311. 

Celibacy  of  clergy,  46-48. 
Ceremonies,  68,73,  74,  95. 
Charity,  the,  364,  393,  396,  405,  406,  448. 
Charles  I.,  King  of  England,  278,  434,  451, 

457. 

l^ver,  452. 

Charter  of  the  Massachusetts  Company, 

457. 
Christianity  in  its  beginning,  17.    In  the 

fourth  century,  34. 
Christmas,  319,  356. 
Church,  Catholic  or  Universal,  its  unity, 

26-28.    In  New  England,  320,  3SS. 
of  England,  61-67, 74, 97, 106, 107, 126, 

133, 147, 156, 158, 164, 190, 198,  265,  294,  457. 

of  Holland,  244,  265,  301. 

of  Scotland,  166,  266,  271.     At  Ley- 
den,  237,  302. 

polity,  growth  of,  36. 

,  Roman  Catholic,  45,  50, 184. 

,  the  false, 110-119. 

,  the  Pilgrim,  its  identity,  275,  276. 

See  Scrooby,  Ley  den,  and  Plymovth. 
Churches,  French.     See  French  Reformed. 

,  National,  51.     See  Nationalism. 

,  the  primitive,  17-33,  82-85, 190. 

,  the  Separatist,  144, 155, 186, 201,  244. 

Clark,  master's  mate  of  the  Mayflower,  dl5. 
Clergy  and  laity  in  the  church,  40,  44. 
Clyfton,  Richard,  207,  230,  231,  234,  240. 
Colony,  proposed,  by  Separatists  under 

Elizabeth,  254. 
planned  by  Pilgrims  at  Leyden, 

254-262,  388. 
Commissary  and  commissary  courts,  77, 
■      197, 198,  448. 
Common  house  at  Plymouth,  319,  320. 
Common  Prayer,  Book  of.    See  Liturgy. 
Communion,  245,  294-302. 
Communism  imposed  on  the  Pilgrims,  282, 

283,  291. 
Compact,  309,  310, 408,  423. 
Conunt,  Roger,  448,  451,  452,  453,  454. 
Confirmation  by  the  apostles,  32. 
Conformists,  79,  446. 


Congregationalism,  53,  88. 

Consistory,  52.    Consistory  Court,  77, 160. 

Conspiracy,  Indian,  374,  378.  Lyford  ami 
Oldham's,  409-414. 

Constanline,  35,  38,  39,  44. 

Contribution,  in  the  church  at  Jerusalem, 
20.  Identical  with  communion,  27. 
Practiced  by  the  Pilgrims,  239. 

Conventicles,  131-134, 140. 

Convocation,  61. 

Cooper,  Bishop,  159. 

Coppin,  Robert,  313,  315. 

Copping,  John,  85-88. 

Corinth,  the  church  at,  23,  24. 

Corn.     See  Indian  Corn. 

Cosins,  Dr.,  95. 

Council  for  New  England.  See  Plymouth 
Council. 

for  Virginia.     See  Virginia  Council. 

Councils  of  Congregational  churches,  235, 
236. 

Court.  See  High  Commission  and  Ecclesi- 
astical Coxirts. 

Court  of  Arches,  77.    Of  Delegates,  ibid. 

Cradock,  Matthew,  453,  458. 

Cranmer,  Archbishop,  53, 62.    George,  204. 

Cummaquid,  347. 

Cushman,  Robert,  258,  262,  263,  271,  273, 
274,  277,  280,  284,  286,  287,  306,  349,  353, 
354,  365,  385,  390,  398,  399,  404,  430,  431, 
433,  434,  447,  449. 

,  Thomas,  353. 

Cushman's  sermon,  353. 


Dartmouth,  the  Mayfloirer  and  Speedwell 
at,  306,  307. 

Davenport,  John,  459,  461. 

Davison,  William,  194, 195. 

Day,  George  E.,  232. 

Deaconess,  in  the  Separatist  Church  at 
Amsterdam,  220. 

Deacons,  at  Jerusalem,  20-22.  In  Martyr 
Church,  135.    At  Leyden,  232. 

Delft-Haven,  285,  303,  320,  384. 

Democratic  elections  in  the  church  at  Je- 
rusalem, 18,  20. 

Dexter,  Henry  M.,  xi,,  194,  232. 

Diocesan  bishops,  39. 

Discovery,  the,  368. 

Donatists,  121, 122, 142,  408. 

Dorchester  Adventurers,  447-450. 

,  in  England,  446,  447,  451. 

Dover,  in  New  Hampshire,  353. 

Dress,  Indian,  328,  330,  333. 

Drought,  381. 

Duel  at  Plymouth,  341. 

Dutch,  211,  212,  286,  364,  306,  444. 

Dutch  republic.     See  Netherlands. 


INDEX. 


481 


E. 

Eastham,  347. 

Eaton,  Theophilu?,  453. 

Ecclesiastical  courts,  73,  70-79, 19S. 

iuvestitures,  40. 

Edward  VI.,  King  of  England,  62. 

Egerton,  Attorney-General,  149. 

Elders,  teaching  and  ruling,  84,  97, 114, 135, 

224,  231,  232,  238,  293,  398,  403. 
Election,  doctrine  of,  112, 113. 

of  deacons,  20-22. 

Elizabeth,  Queen  of  England,  02,  03,  OS,  69, 

71,  73,  74,  78,  88,  91,  147,  100,  183,  1S4, 

186,  194,  195,  200,  3SS. 
Embassy  from  Plymouth  to  Pokauoker, 

342-346. 
Endicott,  John,  453,  454-456,  458,  464,  471. 
Episcopal  government,  38, 43,  4-',  52. 
Episcopalian,  407. 
Episcopius,  Simon,  241,  242. 
Evangelism,  155-105. 
Excommunication,  54,  55,  59,  74,  83,  84, 100, 

108. 

F. 

Famine  at  Plymouth,  anticipated,  356.    lis 

beginning,  301.     Its  continuance,  381. 

Its  end,  3SS. 
Fasting  days,  274,  284,  382,  472. 
Felt,  Joseph  B.,  ix.,  353,  476. 
Fish  and  fishery,  278,  280,  338,  362,  3TS,  390, 

421,  444,  447. 
Fisher,  George  P.,  xi.,  49. 
Fletcher,  Thomas,  431, 432. 
Forefathers'-day,  353. 
Fortificaticm  at  Plymouth,  858,  303,  364. 
Forhine,  the,  349,  350,  351,  352,  356, 357,  359, 

361,  362,  364,  365,  384,  385,  3S6. 
Forward  preachers,  402,  403,  407. 
Fox,  John,  66. 

Frederick,  Elector  of  Saxony,  50. 
Freke,  Bishop,  79. 
French,  345,  349,  364. 

discipline,  422-424. 

Reformed  churches,  267,  269,  301, 

423. 

Fuller,  Samuel,  384,  415,  455,  456,  471. 
Furs,  278,  368,  421,  431,  432. 


Gainsborough,  church  at,  206. 
Generality, '425,   427,    431,   436,   41] 

442. 
Geneva,  51,  52. 

Bible.     See  Bible. 

Service-book,  76. 

Geor-fie,  the,  465,  406. 
Gieseler,  John  K.,  53. 
Giflfard,  George,  120-124,  403. 


t3§, 


Gloucester,  447. 

Gofle,  Thomas,  453. 

Gorges,  Sir  Ferdinand,  390.  Robert,  391, 
393. 

Gott,  Charles,  472. 

Government,  civil,  established  by  the  Pil- 
grims, 292,  444. 

Governors  of  Plymouth  colony,  310,  339, 
391,  444. 

of  the  Mayflower  and  Speedwell,  288. 

Greene,  Richard,  369,  370. 

,  William,  365. 

Greenwood,  John,  93, 105-109, 123-127, 135, 
137, 138, 142,  147,  148-154, 193. 

Grimsby,  in  Lincolnshire,  212. 

Ground-nuts,  335,  370,  377,  392. 

Guiana,  200,  279. 

Gurnet  Head,  315,  318. 

H. 

Hall,  Bishop,  243,  244,  246. 

Hamdeu,  John,  373. 

Hampton.     See  Southampton. 

Hanbury,  viii.,  85, 130, 145, 150, 227,  298. 

Hatton,  Lord-Keeper,  98,  99,  100,  104,  122, 
149. 

Head  of  the  Church  of  England.  See  Su- 
premacy. 

Helwisse,  Thomas,  245. 

Henry  VIIL,  King  of  England,  61,  63. 

Heresy,  102, 159, 160,  249. 

Hessia,  53. 

Higginson,  Francis,  459-4G1,  466^70,  471- 
473. 

High  Commission,  70,  78,  79,  94-109,  120, 
147,  148,  164,  105,  187. 

Hildersham,  Arthur,  400. 

Hilton,  William,  353,  375. 

Hobbamoc,  360,  373,  375,  377. 

Hopkins,  Oceanus,  307. 

,  Samuel,  109, 153. 

,  Stephen,  327,  320,  341,  342-346. 

House-lots,  320. 

House  of  worship,  204,  232. 

Houses,  347. 

Hubbard,  William,  449,  475. 

Hudson  River,  274,  321,  322,  396,  444. 

Hudson's  Bay,  396. 

Hull,in  Yorkshire,  211,212. 

Hunt,  the  kidnapper,  329,  331,  347. 

Hunter,  Joseph,  202. 

I. 

Independency,  245. 
Indian  challenge,  357. 

corn,  312,  313,  338,  343,  348,  349,  36S, 

369,  370,  377,  380,  381,  432,  436. 

conspiracy,  o74-:i7S. 

Indians,  312-315,  319,  326-336,  342,  343,  348, 


482 


INDEX. 


340,  35T,  358,  360,  368,  36»,  370,  3T9,  399, 
420,  432,  458,  461. 
Ireland,  398,  419. 

J. 

Jacob,  Henry,  226,  227. 

,  J.  A.,  33. 

James  I.,  King  of  England,  167,  200,  201, 

203,  208,  262,  263,  269,  271,  332,  345. 
James,  the.    See  Little  Javies. 
Jamestown,  390. 
Jerusalem,  beginning  of  the  church  in, 

17-22. 
Johnson,  Francis,  128-130,  134,  142,  186, 

187, 191,  217,  221,  222,  225,  236. 

,  George,  218,  221,  222. 

,  Isaac,  453, 459. 

,  Lady  Arbella,  459. 

Jones,  master  of  the  Mayflower,  312,  313, 

325,  336. 
Juniper,  311. 


Kennebec,  432. 

King.    See  Charles  L,  Edward  VI.,  Henry 

VIII.,  James  I.,  and  Massasuit. 
Kniston,  George,  135. 
Knox,  John,  60. 


Lambert,  Francis,  53-59. 

Lambeth  Palace,  94,  96, 122. 

Latimer,  Hugh,  53,  66. 

Laud,  Archbishop,  281,  451. 

Law,  Christian  and  heathen,  higher  and 
lower,  42-44. 

Lay-elders,  52,  59. 

Lecturers  in  the  Church  of  England,  123, 
126,  460. 

Lee,  Nicholas,  135. 

Leicester,  in  England,  459,  460. 

Leyden,  220,  228-242,  303,  350,  352,  354,  366, 
384, 393, 398, 412,  435, 436, 440, 441-443,  455. 

Street,  at  Plymouth,  319. 

University,  220,  230,  233,  241,  242. 

Lincoln,  Countess  of,  273. 

,  family  of  the  Earls  of,  273. 

Lion,  the,  465,  466,  467. 

Little  James,  the,  384,  431. 

Liturgy,  the  English,  62,  64,  87,  97,  99, 106, 
114,115,120. 

Lollards  and  Lollardism,  61, 62, 131, 147,189. 

London  Company.  See  Virginia  Company. 

Council.     See  Virginia  Company. 

Merchants.  See  Merchant  Advent- 
urers. 

Partners,  440, 441. 

Lord's  day.     See  Sabbath. 

Prayer,  97, 131. 


Low  Countries.    See  Netherlands. 
Luther  and  Lutheramsm,  50,  53,  58, 61,  303. 
Lyford,  John,  398, 299, 403-420, 421,  422,  423, 
433, 437,  441,  448, 452. 

M. 

Magna  Charta,  180, 189-191. 

Maine,  coast  of,  379. 

Manomet  Point,  318, 

Margaret,  Queen  of  Scotland,  202. 

Marprelate,  163, 185. 

Marriages,  106, 107,  340. 

Martinists,  164. 

Martyr  Church.    See  Southwark  Church. 

Mary,  Queen  of  England,  71,  75, 145. 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scotland,  195,  200. 

Massachusetts  Bay,  376,  378,  391,  447,  452. 

Company,  453,  454,  456,  457,  460,  472. 


Indians,  374,  376,  378. 

Massasoit,  328,  332-334.  342-346,  357,  360, 
373. 

Mather,  Cotton,  229,  467. 

Mayflotuer,  the,  284,  286,  304,  306-308,  309, 
310,  312,  313,  314,  317,  320,  321,  322,  325, 
336,  337,  347,  349,  354,  384,  386,  423,  444. 

Melanchthon,  Philip,  58. 

Merchant  Adventurers,  274,  277,  280,  281- 
283,  287,  291,  306,  307,  337,  349,  350,  354, 
355,  356,  361,  365,  380,  383,  384,  385,  386, 
393,  394,  398,  399-403,  405,  417,  418,  419, 
421,  425,  430,  433,  434,  437,  439,  440,  449. 

,  friendly  minority,  424,  432. 

,  malcontent  majority,  422, 448,  4-19. 

Merrimack,  452. 

Middleburg,  129,  217. 

Milman,  Henry  H.,  33. 

Milton,  John,  242. 

Ministers  sent  by  the  Massachusetts  Co;i> 
pauy,  458,  459,  461,  462,  465,  470. 

Monastic  orders,  47,  48. 

Morrell,  William,  391,  393. 

Mortality  at  Plymouth,  324,  326. 

of  Indians,  328, 346,  357. 


Morton,  George,  384,  390. 

,  Nathaniel,  199, 475. 

Mosquitoes  in  New  England,  396. 
Mourt's  Relation,  390. 

N. 

Nantasket,  419,  437,  448, 470. 

Narraganset  Bay,  345. 

Indians,  346,  357,  358,  363. 

Nationalism  and  National  Churches,  52, 
67,  72,  73,  75,  112,  126,  390,  404,  406,  409, 
412,  421,  422,  446,  448,  457,  467. 

Nauset,  347,  374. 

Nausite  Indians,  329,  349. 

Neal,  Daniel,  70, 109,  227. 

Neander,  John  A.W.,  33. 


INDEX. 


483 


Nether]auds,  104,  200,  21 G. 
New  Amsterdam,  364,  444. 
New  England,  1S4,  201,  215,  278,  SOS,  311, 

320,  321,  322,  341,  349,  3GS,  378,  300,  391, 

398,  452,  454. 
New  Hampshire,  353,  379, 
New  Jersej',  274. 
New  Netherlands,  27G. 
New  York.    See  Spw  Awtiterdam. 
Nonconformists,  07,  70, 197. 
Northampton,  IGO,  165. 
North  parts  of  Virginia,  278,  309,  321,  390. 
Norwich,  79,  243. 
Notes  of  the  church.  111. 
Nowell,  Increase,  453. 

O. 

Oaths,  94,  96, 106. 

Objections  against  Plymouth  colony,  395- 
397. 

Offenders,  way  of  dealing  with,  in  primi- 
tive churches,  28. 

Old  Catholics,  74. 

Oldham,  John,  405-420,  422,  423,  437,  448, 
470. 

Order  of  public  worship,  237-240. 

Ordination,  135,  231,  473,  475. 

Organization,  17,  31, 131. 

Oxford,  156. 

P. 

Paget,  John,  298. 

Palfrey,  John  G.,  xi.,  210,  451. 

,  Peter,  451. 

Palmer, William,  111. 

Paomet,  343,  344,  374. 

Paragon,  the,  381,  383. 

Parish  assemblies,  107,  108,  121,  127,  186, 

190,  294,  302. 
Parkhurst,  Bishop,  79. 
Parliament,  61,  73, 156, 159, 161, 165, 
Pastor  in  the  chnrch  at  Plymouth,  445. 
Pastoral  letter,  288-292. 
Patent,  negotiations  for,  262-273. 

obtained,  273. 

worthless,  274. 

Patentees  of  Massachusetts,  453. 
Patuset,  328,  331,  343. 
Pecksuot,  377,  378. 
Peltry  (skins),  343.    See  Furs. 
Penry,  Hellenor,  169, 170, 176. 

,  John,  155-185, 101-193. 

Pentecost,  19. 

Peter-church  at  Leydeu,  232,  285,  436. 

Phelipps,  Thomas,  153, 154. 

Philip,  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  53,  58. 

Pickering,  Edward,  365. 

Pierce,  John,  306,  407. 

,  William,  407, 412,  417, 41 S,  419. 


Pilgrims,  186,  216,  253,  273,  274,  310,  317, 
319,  321,  323,  325,  330,  335,  354,  360,  364, 
367,  3S3,  386,  388,  405,  409,  421,  422,  424, 
432,  444,  449. 

Pipe  of  peace,  334,  344. 

Piscataqua  River,  379. 

Plague  in  London  and  in  Leyden,  434. 

Planters  of  Plymouth,  280,  287,  291,  356, 
301,  380,  394,  437,  439. 

on  their  particular,  394,  595, 413, 437. 

at  Cape  Ann  and  Naumkeag,  454, 

464. 

Plymouth,  in  England,  306,  307,  317,  350. 

,  in  New  England,  the  ■'irst  land- 
ing, 316.  Arrival  of  the  Mayflower, 
317. 

colony,  321,  337,  351,  355,  390,  301, 

424,  437,  444,  440. 

,  the  church  at,  399, 406,  410,  412,  414, 


417,  424,  476. 
Company  or  Council,  261,  278,  280, 

309,  317,  321,  322,  371,  379,  390,  391,  420, 

432,  433,  440,  444,  440,  452. 

harl)or,  316,  324,  348. 

Rock,  274. 


Pokauoket,  342,  373. 

Polyander,  John,  241,  242. 

Pontificals,  119, 125,  403, 408. 

Pope,  the,  42,  45. 

Popham,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  261. 

Portsmouth,  384. 

Prayer,  115,  IIG,  214. 

Preachers  in  the  primitive  cburcliec-,  3T. 
In  later  times,  38. 

Precisians,  125. 

Presbyterianism,  71. 

Presbytery,  classical,  108,  110,  231.  Con- 
gregational, lOS,  208,  223,  224,  232. 

Press,  the  secret,  160, 163. 

Priesthood  in  the  church,  39,  40, 103. 

Primacy  of  the  Roman  See,  41,  42. 

Prince,  Thomas,  viii.,  322,  332. 

Prisons  in  and  about  Loudon,  77, 140, 141, 
142, 144. 

Privy  Council,  78,  147,  166,  167,  264,  266, 
267,  260,  270. 

Privye  Church  in  London,  76. 

Prophesying,  239,  317,  353,  383,  405,  416. 

Protestantism,  49.     See  Reformation. 

Provincetown  harbor,  308. 

Punchard,  George,  xi.,  186,  265. 

Puritan  Exodus,  xi.,  446. 

Puritans  and  Puritanism,  x.,  67-76,  85,  93, 
117-119, 121, 122, 123, 153, 160, 167, 168, 186, 
200,  211,  226,  237,  2G6,  295,  297,  383,  397, 
308,  300,  403,  408,  415,  419,  422,  423,  440, 
444,  445,  446,  448,  449,  451,  453,  455,  456, 
457,  462,  403,  471,  474,  477. 

Pursuivants,  141, 142, 197,  206. 


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fusely Illustrated  from  the  Author's  own  Sketches ;  containing  also  Maps  and 
Valuable  Meteorological  Charts.     Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

HERVEY'S  CHRISTIAN  RHETORIC.  A  System  of  Christian  Rhetoric,  for  the 
Use  of  Preachers  and  Other  Speakers.  By  George  Winfred  Hervev,  M.A., 
Author  of  "Rhetoric  of  Conversation,"  &c.    Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

PRIME'S  I  GO  A-FISHING.  I  Go  a-Fishing.  ByW.  C.  Peime.  Crown  Svo,  Cloth, 
$2  50. 

ANNUAL  RECORD  OF  SCIENCE  AND  INDUSTRY  FOR  1873.  Edited  by  Prof. 
Spencer  F.  Bairu,  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  with  the  Assistance  of  Emi- 
nent Men  of  Science.  12mo,  over  800  pp.,  Cloth,  $2  00.  (Uniform  with  the  An- 
nual Records  of  Science  and  Industry  for  1871  and  1872.     12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00.) 

EVANGELICAL  ALLIANCE  CONFERENCE,  1873.  History,  Essays,  Orations,  and 
Other  Documents  of  the  Sixth  General  Conference  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance, 
held  in  New  York,  Oct.  2-12,  1873.  Edited  by  Rev.  Philip  Scuaff,  D.D.,  and 
Rev.  S.  Iren.eus  Prime,  D.D.  With  Portraits  of  Rev.  Messrs.  Pronier,  Carrasco, 
and  Cook,  recently  deceased.    Svo,  Cloth,  nearly  800  pages,  $6  00. 

VINCENT'S  LAND  OF  THE  WHITE  ELEPHANT.  The  Land  of  the  White  Ele- 
phant: Sights  and  Scenes  in  Southeastern  Asia.  A  Personal  Narrative  of 
Travel  and  Adventure  in  Farther  India,  embracing  the  Countries  of  Burma, 
Siam,  Cambodia,  and  Cochin-China  (1871-2).  By  Frank  Vincent,  Jr.  Mag- 
nificently illustrated  with  Map,  Plans,  and  numerous  Woodcuts.  Crown  Svo, 
Cloth,  $3  50. 

TRISTRAM'S  THE  LAND  OF  MOAB.  The  Result  of  Travels  and  Discoveries  on 
the  East  Side  of  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  Jordan.  By  H.  B.  Tristram,  M.A., 
LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  Master  of  the  Greatham  Hospital,  and  Hon.  Canon  of  Durham. 
W^ith  a  Chapter  on  the  Persian  Palace  of  Mashita,  by  Jas.  Ferguson,  F.R.S. 
With  Map  and  Illustrations.     Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

SANTO  DOMINGO,  Past  and  Present;  with  a  Glance  at  Hayti.  By  Samuel  Hazard. 
Maps  and  Illustrations.     Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

SMILES'S  HUGUENOTS  AFTER  THE  REVOCATION.  The  Huiruenots  in 
France  after  the  Kevocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes:  Avith  a  Vi^it  to  the  Country 
of  the  Vaudois.    By  Samuel  Smiles.    Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 


2     Harper  6^  Brothers'  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works. 

POETS  OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  The  Poets  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury. Selected  and  Edited  by  the  Kev.  Hobkrt  Aris  Willmott.  With  English 
•md  American  Additions,  arranged  by  Evkrt  A.  Duyokinok,  Editor  of  "Cyclo- 
paedia of  American  Literature."  Comprising  Selections  from  the  Gieatest  Au- 
Ihors  of  the  Age.  Superbly  Illustrated  with  141  Engravings  from  Designs  by 
the  most  Eminent  Artists.  In  elegant  small  4to  form,  printed  on  Superfine 
Tinted  Paper,  richly  bound  in  extra  Cloth,  Beveled,  Gilt  Edges,  $5  00 ;  Half  Calf, 
$5  50 ;  Full  Turkey  Morocco,  $9  00. 
THE  REVISION  OF  THE  ENGIJSH  VERSION  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 
With  au  Introduction  by  the  Rev.  P.  Souaff,  D.D.  618  pp.,  Crown  8vo,  Cloth, 
$:{  00. 

This  work  embraces  in  one  volume: 
I.  ON  A  FRESH    REVISION   OF   THE   ENGLISH  NEW  TESTAMENT, 
By  J.  B.  LiGHTFooT,  D.D.,  Canon  of  St.  Paul's,  and  Hulsean  Professor  of 
Divinity,  Cambridge.     Second  Edition,  Revised.    196  pp. 
II.  ON  THE  AUTHORIZED  VERSION  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  In 
Connection  with  some  Recent  Proposals  for  its  Revision.    By  Richaeu 
Chenkvix  Trench,  D.D.,  Archbisho})  of  Dublin.    194  pp. 
III.  CONSIDERATIONS  ON  THE  REVISION  OF  THE  ENGLISH  VERSION 
OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.    By  J.  C.  Ellicott,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Glou- 
cester and  Bristol.    ITS  pp. 

NORDHOFF'S  CALIFORNIA.  California:  For  Health,  Pleasure,  and  Residence 
A  Book  for  Travelers  and  Settlers.    Illustrated.    8vo,  Paper,  $2  00 ;  Cloth,  $2  50.* 

MOTLEY'S  DUTCH  REPUBLIC.  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic.  By  John  Lo* 
TUROp  Motley,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.  With  a  Portrait  of  William  of  Orange.  3  vols., 
8vo,  Cloth,  $10  50. 

JilOTLEY'S  UNITED  NETHERLAND'S.  History  of  the  United  Netherlands:  from 
the  Death  of  William  the  Silent  to  the  Twelve  Years'  Truce— 1609.  With  a  full 
View  of  the  English-Dutch  Struggle  against  Spain,  and  of  the  Origin  and  De- 
struction of  the  Spanish  Armada.  By  John  Lotiirop  Motley,  LL.D.,  D.C.L. 
Portraits.    4  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $14  00. 

MOTLEY'S  LIFE  AND  DEATH  OF  JOHN  OP  BARNEVELD.  Life  and  Death 
of  John  of  Barneveld,  Advocate  of  Holland.  With  a  View  of  the  Primary 
Causes  and  Movements  of  "  The  Thirty  Years'  War."  By  John  Lothrop  Mot- 
ley, D.C.L.     With  Illustrations,     In  Two  Volumes.     Svo,  Cloth,  $T  00, 

HAYDN'S  DICTIONARY  OF  DATES,  relating  to  all  Ages  and  Nations.  For  Uni- 
versal Reference.  Edited  by  Benjamin  Vincent,  Assistant  Secretary  and  Keeper 
of  the  Library  of  the  Roval  Institution  of  Great  Britain ;  and  Revised  for  the  Use 
of  American  Readers.    8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00 ;  Sheep,  $0  00. 

MACGREGOR'S  ROB  ROY  ON  THE  JORDAN.  The  Rob  Boy  on  the  Jordan, 
Nile,  Red  Sea,  and  Gennesareth,  &c.  A  Canoe  Cruise  in  Palestine  and  Egypt, 
and  the  Waters  of  Damascus.  By  J.  Maogregok,  M.A.  With  Maps  and  Illus- 
trations.    Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

WALLACE'S  MALAY  ARCHIPELAGO.  The  Malay  Archipelago :  the  Land  of  the 
Orang-Utan  and  the  Bird  of  Paradise.  A  Narrative  of  Travel,  1854-1S02.  With 
Studies  of  Man  and  Nature.  By  Alfred  Rfrsel  Wallace.  With  Ten  Maps 
and  Fifty-one  Elegant  Illustrations.     Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

WHYMPER'S  ALASKA.  Travel  and  Adventure  in  the  Territorjr  of  Alaska,  for- 
merly Russian  America— now  Ceded  to  the  United  States— and  in  various  other 
parts  of  the  North  Pacific.  By  Frel»eriok  Wuympek.  With  Map  and  lllustr;ip 
tions.    Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

ORTON'S  ANDES  AND  THE  AMAZON.  The  Andes  and  the  Amazon ;  or,  Across 
the  Continent  of  South  America.  By  James  Orton,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Natural 
History  in  Vassar  College,  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y.,  and  Corresponding  Member  (jf 
the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  Philadelphia.  With  a  New  Map  of  Equatorial 
America  and  numerous  Illustrations.     Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

WINCHELL'S  SKETCHES  OF  CREATION.  Sketches  of  Creation :  a  Popular 
View  of  some  of  the  Grand  Conclusions  of  the  Sciences  in  reference  to  the  His- 
tory of  Matter  and  of  Life.  Together  with  a  Statement  of  the  Intimations  of 
Science  resjiecting  the  Primordial  Condition  and  the  Ultimate  Destiny  of  the 
Earth  and  the  Solar  System.  By  Alexander  Winchell,  LL.D.,  Professor  of 
Geology,  Zoologv,  and  Botany  in  the  University  of  Michigan,  and  Director  of  the 
State  Geological"  Survey.    With  Illustrations.    12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00, 

WHITE'S  MASSACRE  OF  ST.  BARTHOLOMEW.  The  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew: Pieccdod  by  a  History  of  the  Reliirious  Wars  in  the  Reign  of  Charles  IX. 
By  Henry  White,  M.A.     With  Illustrations.    Svo,  Cloth, .?!  75. 


Harper  &>  Brothers'*  Valuable  and  Interesting  Works.      3 

LOSSING'S  "FIELD-BOOK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  Pictorial  Field-Book  of  the 
Revolution;  or,  Illustrations,  by  Pen  and  Pencil,  of  the  History,  Biou:raphy, 
Scenery,  Relics,  and  Traditions  of  the  War  for  Independence.  By  Benbon  J. 
L08SING.  2  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $14  00;  Sheep,  $15  00;  Half  Calf,  $18  00;  Full 
Turkey  Morocco,  $22  00. 

LOSSING'S  FIELD-BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1812.  Pictorial  Field-Book  of  the 
War  of  1S12;  or.  Illustrations,  by  Pen  and  Pencil,  of  the  History,  Biography, 
Scenery,  Relics,  and  Traditions  of  the  Last  War  for  American  Independence.  By 
Benson  J.  Lossing.  With  several  hundred  Engravings  on  Wood,  by  Lossing  and 
Barritt,  chiefly  from  Original  Sketches  by  the  Author.  1088  pages,  Svo,  Cloth, 
$7  00;  Sheep,  $8  50;  Half  Calf,  $10  00. 

ALFORD'S  GREEK  TESTAMENT.  The  Greek  Testament :  with  a  critically  revised 
Text ;  a  Digest  of  Various  Readings ;  Marginal  References  to  Verbal  and  Idio- 
matic Usage  ;  Prolegomena;  and  a  Critical  and  Exegetical  Commentary.  For 
the  Use  of  Theological  Students  and  Ministers.  By  Henry  Alfokd,  D.D.,  Dean 
of  Canterbury.  Vol.  I.,  containing  the  Four  Gospels.  944  pages,  Svo,  Cloth, 
$G  00 ;  Sheep,  $6  50. 

ABBOTT'S  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT.  The  History  of  Frederick  the  Second, 
called  Frederick  the  Great.  By  John  S.  C.  Akuott.  Elegantly  Illustrated.  Svo, 
Cloth,  $5  00. 

ABBOTT'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  The  French  Revolu- 
tion of  1789,  as  viewed  in  the  Lisht  of  Republican  Institutions.  By  John  S.  C.  Aij« 
uoTT.    With  lOu  Engravings.   ^Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

ABBOTT'S  NAPOLEON  BONAPARTE.  The  History  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  By 
JouN  S.  C.  AuBOTT.  With  Maps,  Woodcuts,  and  Portraits  on  Steel.  2  vols., 
Svo,  Cloth,  $10  00. 

ABBOTT'S  NAPOLEON  AT  ST.  HELENA  ;  or.  Interesting  Anecdotes  and  Remark- 
able Conversations  of  the  Emperor  during  the  Five  and  a  Half  Years  of  his 
Captivity.  Collected  from  the  Memorials  of  Las  Casas,  O'Meara,  Moutholon, 
Antommarchi,  and  others.  By  Joun  S.  C.  Abbott.  With  Illustrations.  Svo, 
Cloth,  $5  00. 

ADDISON'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Joseph  Addison,  embracing  the 
whole  of  the  "Spectator."    Complete  in  3  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

ALCOCK'S  JAPAN.  The  Capital  of  the  Tycoon :  a  Narrative  of  a  Three  Years' 
Residence  in  Japan.  By  Sir  Rutherford  Alcock,  K.C.B.,  Her  Majesty's  Envoy 
Extraordinarvand  Minister  Plenipotentiary  in  Japan.  With  Maps  and  Engravings. 
2  vols.,  12mo,'Cloth,  $3  50. 

ALISON'S  HISTORY  OF  EUROPE.  First  Series  :  From  the  Commencement  of 
the  French  Revolution,  in  1789,  to  the  Restoration  of  the  Bourbons,  in  1815.  [In 
addition  to  the  Notes  on  Chapter  LXXVL,  which  correct  the  errors  of  the 
original  work  concerning  the  United  States,  a  copious  Analytical  Index  has  been 
appended  to  this  American  edition.]  Second  Series  :  From  the  Fall  of  Napoleon, 
in  1815,  to  the  Accession  of  Louis  Napoleon,  in  1852.    S  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $16  00. 

BALDWIN'S  PRE-HISTORIC  NATIONS.  Pre-Historic  Nations ;  or.  Inquiries  con- 
cerning some  of  the  Great  Peoples  and  Civilizations  of  Antiquity,  and  their 
Probable  Relation  to  a  still  Older  Civilization  of  the  Ethiopians  or  Cushites  of 
Arabia.  By  Joun  D.  Baldwin,  Member  of  the  American  Oriental  Society. 
12nio,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

BARTH'S  NORTH  AND  CENTRAL  AFRICA.  Travels  and  Discoveries  in  North 
and  Central  Africa:  being  a  Journal  of  an  Expedition  undertaken  under  the 
Auspices  of  H.  B.  M.'s  Government,  in  the  Years  1849-1855.  By  Henry  Bartu, 
Ph.D.,  D.C.L.     Illustrated.    3  vols.,  S^o,  Cloth,  $12  Op. 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER'S  SERMONS.  Sermons  by  Henry  Ward  Beeoheu, 
Pivmouth  Church,  Brooklvn.  Selected  from  Published  and  Unpublished  Dis- 
courses, and  Revised  by  their  Author.  With  Steel  Portrait.  Complete  in  2  vols.- 
Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

LYMAN  BEECHER'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY,  &c.  Autobiography,  Correspondence, 
&c.,  of  Lyman  Beecher,  D.D.  Edited  bv  his  Son,  Charles  Beechkr.  With  Three 
Steel  Portraits,  and  Engravings  on  Wood.    In  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

BOSWELL'S  JOHNSON.  The  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.  Including  a  Journey 
to  the  Hebrides.  By  James  Boswei.l,  Esq.  A  New  Edition,  with  numerous 
Additions  and  Notes.  By  John  V/ilbon  Ceoker,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.  Portrait  of 
Bos  well.    2  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $4  00. 


4      Harper  o^  Brothers''  Valuable  and  Interesting  TVorks. 

DEAPER'S  CIVIL  WAR.  History  of  the  American  Civil  War.  By  John  W.  Dra. 
PEE,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Physiology  in  the  University  of 
New  York.    lu  Three  Vols.    Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50  per  vol. 

DRAPER'S  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  EUROPE.  A  History  of  the 
Intellectual  Development  of  Europe.  By  Joun  W.  Draper,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Profess- 
or of  Chemistry  and  Physiology  in  the  University  of  New  York.    Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00 

DRAPER'S  AMERICAN  CIVIL  POLICY.  Thoughts  on  the  Future  Civil  Policy  of 
America.  By  John  W.  Draper,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Physiol- 
ogy in  the  University  of  New  York.    Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

DU  CHAILLU'S  AFRICA.  Explorations  and  Adventures  in  Equatorial  Africa  with 
Accounts  of  the  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  People,  and  of  the  Chase  of  the  Go- 
rilla, the  Crocodile,  Leopard,  Elephant,  Hippopotamus,  and  other  Animals.  By 
Paul  B.  Du  Chaillu.   Numerous  Illustrations.    Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

BELLOWS'S  OLD  WORLD.  The  Old  World  in  its  New  Face :  Impressions  of  Eu- 
rope in  1S67-1S68.    By  Henry  W.  Bellows.     2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

BROD  HEAD'S  HISTORY'  OF  NEW  YORK.  History  of  the  State  of  New  York. 
By  JouN  RoMEYN  Brodueat>.    1609-1691.    2  vols.    Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00  per  vol. 

BROUGHAM'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  Life  and  Times  of  Henry,  Lord  Brougham. 
Written  by  Himself.    In  Three  Volumes.    12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00  per  vol. 

BULWER'S  PROSE  WORKS.  Miscellaneous  Prose  Works  of  Edward  Bulwer. 
Lord  Lyttou.     2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

BULWER'S  HORACE.  The  Odes  and  Epodes  of  Horace.  A  Metrical  Translation 
into  English.  With  Introduction  and  Commentaries.  By  Lori>  Lytton.  With 
Latin  Text  from  the  Editions  of  Orelli,  Macleane,  and  Yonge.    12mo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

BULWER'S  KING  ARTHUR.  A  Poem.  By  Earl  Lytton.  New  Edition.  12mo, 
Cloth,  $1  75. 

BURNS'S  LIFE  AND  WORKS.  The  Life  and  Works  of  Robert  Burns.  Edited 
by  Robert  Chambers.    4  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $6  00. 

REINDEER,  DOGS,  AND  SNOW-SHOES.  A  Journal  of  Siberian  Travel  and  Ex- 
plorations made  in  the  Years  lS65-'67.  By  Richard  J.  Busu,  late  of  the  Russo- 
American  Telegraph  Expedition.    Illustrated.     Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

CARLYLE'S  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT.  History  of  Friedrich  II.,  called  Frederick 
the  Great.  By  Thomas  Carlyle.  Portraits,  Maps,  Plans.  &c.  6  vols.,  12mo, 
Cloth,  $12  00. 

CARLYLE'S  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  History  of  the  French  Revolution.  Newly 
Revised  by  the  Author,  with  Index,  &c.    2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  .$3  50. 

CARLY'LE'S  OLIVER  CROMWELL.  Letters  and  Speeches  of  Oliver  Cromwell. 
With  Elucidations  and  Connecting  Narrative.    2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

CHALMERS'S  POSTHUMOUS  WORKS.  The  Posthumous  Works  of  Dr.  Chalmers. 
Edited  by  his  Son-in-Law,  Rev.  William  Hanna,  LL.D.  Complete  in  9  vols., 
12mo,  Cloth,  $13  50. 

COLERIDGE'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Complete  Works  of  Samuel  Taj^lor 
Coleridge.  With  an  Introductoi-y  Essay  upon  his  Philosophical  and  Theological 
Opinions.  Edited  by  Professor  "Suedd.  Complete  in  Seven  Vols.  With  a^fine 
Portrait.    Small  Svo,  Cloth,  $10  .50. 

DOOLITTLE'S  CHINA.  Social  Life  of  the  Chinese :  with  some  Account  of  their  Re- 
ligious, Governmental,  Educational,  and  Business  Customs  and  Opinions.  With 
special  but  not  exclusive  Reference  to  Fuhchau.  By  Rev.  Justus  Doolittle, 
Fourteen  Years  Member  of  the  Fuhchau  Mission  of  the  American  Board.  Illus- 
trated with  more  than  150  characteristic  Engravings  on  Wood.  2  vols.,  12mo, 
Cloth,  $5  00. 

GIBBON'S  ROME.  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  By  Ed- 
ward Gibbon.  With  Notes  by  Rev.  H.  H.  Milman  and  M.  Guizot.  A  new  cheap 
Edition.  To  which  is  added  a  complete  Index  of  the  whole  Work,  and  a  Portrait 
of  the  Author.     6  vols.,  12ino,  Cloth,  $9  00. 

HAZEN'S  SCHOOL  AND  ARMY  IN  GERMANY  AND  FRANCE.  The  School 
and  the  Army  in  Germany  and  France,  with  a  Diary  of  Siege  Life  at  Versailles. 
By  Brevet  Major-General  W.  B.  Hazen,  U.S.A.,  Colonel  Sixlh  Infantry.  Crown 
Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 


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